Question 1

Since bread is a food, shouldn't we use the partitive article du instead of le here?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the meaning! You use du pain when you mean "some bread" (an unspecified amount). Here, we use the definite article le because we are talking about bread in a broad, general sense. The baker makes bread as a whole category, rather than just "some" of it.

Question 2

I thought the verb for "make" was faire. Why does this sentence use prépare?

Accepted Answer

You are right that faire means "to make" or "to do," and you could perfectly well say Le boulanger fait le pain. However, when talking about cooking or assembling food, French often uses préparer (to prepare). In English, we usually just translate this naturally as "makes."

Question 3

How would I say this if the baker is a woman?

Accepted Answer

You would say La boulangère prépare le pain. To make professions ending in -er feminine, you change the ending to -ère and swap the masculine article le for the feminine la.

Question 4

What is the dictionary form (infinitive) of prépare?

Accepted Answer

It is préparer, which is a regular -er verb. Since le boulanger acts as a "he" (il), we drop the -er from the dictionary form and add the standard "he/she/it" ending, which is an -e. This gives us prépare.

Le boulanger prépare le pain.

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