Learn French: Tu cherches des boulons ? Tu peux utiliser n'importe lesquels. - Are you looking for bolts? You can use any of them.

Tu cherches des boulons ? Tu peux utiliser n'importe lesquels.

Are you looking for bolts? You can use any of them.

Breakdown of Tu cherches des boulons ? Tu peux utiliser n'importe lesquels.

you (informal singular)

des

some (plural indefinite)

Questions & Answers about Tu cherches des boulons ? Tu peux utiliser n'importe lesquels.

Why do we use n'importe lesquels here instead of n'importe quoi?

N'importe quoi means "anything" in a general, abstract sense. Here, you are referring back to a specific group of physical items mentioned earlier (des boulons). When you want to say "any of them" or pick freely from a specific group, you must use the pronoun n'importe lequel and adapt its gender and number to match.

How do we know to choose the form lesquels instead of lequel or lesquelles?

The pronoun must agree in gender and number with the noun it replaces. It refers back to des boulons. Because un boulon is masculine, and the speaker is referring to multiple bolts, you need the masculine plural form lesquels.

Why isn't there a word for "for" after cherches?

The French verb chercher inherently means "to look for" or "to search for". Adding the preposition pour right after it is a common habit for English speakers, but the "for" concept is already built into the French verb itself.

To say "any of them", why don't we use the pronoun en before the verb?

You do not need en because the pronoun n'importe lesquels already completely stands in for the noun phrase. It carries the meaning of "any of them" entirely on its own, making the pronoun en grammatically redundant here.