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J'achète la viande à la boucherie.

J'achète la viande à la boucherie.
I buy meat at the butcher's.
From Lesson 266:Shops and eating out·French

Breakdown of J'achète la viande à la boucherie.

acheter
to buy
la viande
the meat
la boucherie
the butcher's shop

Questions & Answers about J'achète la viande à la boucherie.

Why does it use la viande instead of de la viande if the English translation is just "meat"?
In French, using the definite article la here often suggests a general habit or a specific responsibility, like saying "I am the one who buys the meat" or "As for meat, I buy it at the butcher's." If you just wanted to say you were buying a certain amount of meat on a specific trip, you would use the partitive article and say J'achète de la viande (I am buying some meat).
Why does achète have a grave accent (è) when the infinitive acheter does not?
Acheter is a stem-changing verb. To keep the pronunciation consistent, an accent is added to the first e whenever the verb ending is silent (as it is for je, tu, il/elle, and ils/elles). For nous and vous, the ending is pronounced, so it stays as achetons and achetez without the accent.
Can I use chez here and say chez la boucherie?
No, because chez is only used with people or pronouns, never with physical buildings or shops. To mean "at the butcher's", you can either use the shop name with à la (à la boucherie) or the person's profession with chez (chez le boucher).

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