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L'étudiant utilise moins de papier et protège l'environnement.

L'étudiant utilise moins de papier et protège l'environnement.
The student uses less paper and protects the environment.
From Lesson 122:Comparing quantities of nouns (plus de... que)·French

Questions & Answers about L'étudiant utilise moins de papier et protège l'environnement.

Why is it moins de papier and not moins du papier?
When comparing quantities of nouns with expressions like moins de (less), plus de (more), or autant de (as much), you always use just de or d'. You drop the partitive articles (du, de la, des) after these expressions of quantity.
Could I use moins de with plural nouns too, like 'fewer students'?
Yes! In French, moins de translates to both 'less' (for uncountable things like paper) and 'fewer' (for countable things like students). For example, you would just say moins d'étudiants.
Why does the verb protège have an accent grave (è) when the infinitive protéger has an accent aigu (é)?
Protéger is a stem-changing verb. When conjugating it in the present tense, if the ending is silent (like the -e in the il/elle form used here for l'étudiant), the é changes to è to make it easier to pronounce.
Is environnement masculine or feminine?
It is masculine (un environnement). The sentence uses l' because the word starts with a vowel, which hides the gender, but as a helpful tip, almost all French words ending in -ment are masculine.

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