Learn Hardcore French: J'aime la glace à la vanille.

With verbs of liking and disliking (aimer, adorer, détester, préférer) French normally uses the definite article (le, la, les) for things in general.

J'aime la glace. = I like ice cream (in general).
Il déteste le café. = He hates coffee.
Nous préférons les pommes. = We prefer apples.

You would not say J'aime glace; a noun almost always needs some kind of determiner (article, possessive, etc.).
Du glace is also wrong because glace is feminine; the partitive would be de la glace, and that would mean some ice cream in a more concrete sense, not a general statement of liking. For a general like/dislike, la glace is the idiomatic choice.

Why is glace feminine (la glace)?

Every French noun has a grammatical gender, masculine or feminine, which is mostly arbitrary and must be memorized.

la glace = feminine singular
une glace = a (portion of) ice cream / an ice cream
les glaces = plural

There isn’t a reliable rule to predict that glace is feminine; you learn it as la glace. A rough tip: many nouns ending in -e are feminine, but there are many exceptions, so this is only a hint, not a rule.

Also, note that glace can mean:

ice cream (in everyday contexts, especially in cafés, restaurants)
ice (e.g., la glace sur la route = ice on the road)
mirror (in some expressions, especially un miroir / une glace = a mirror)

In your sentence, the context (with a flavor) makes the meaning clearly ice cream.

Why do we use à la in à la vanille and not de la or just vanille?

For flavors of ice cream, yogurt, etc., French typically uses à:

une glace à la vanille = a vanilla ice cream
un yaourt à la fraise = a strawberry yogurt
un café à la noisette = a hazelnut-flavored coffee

So à la vanille means with vanilla / vanilla-flavored.

De la vanille alone would mean some vanilla (the ingredient), not the flavor of a product.
Just vanille without a preposition and article (e.g., glace vanille) is sometimes heard in menus or shorthand, but the standard, neutral form is glace à la vanille.

Why is there another la in à la vanille? We already had la before glace.

French usually needs an article before each noun phrase:

la glace (the ice cream)
la vanille (the vanilla)

The la in à la vanille is the article for vanille, not a repetition for glace.

Grammatically:

à + la (before a feminine noun) stays à la
à + le (before a masculine noun) contracts to au
- e.g., au chocolat (à + le chocolat)

So:

la glace à la vanille = the vanilla ice cream
la glace au chocolat = the chocolate ice cream

Could we say J'aime glace à la vanille without the first la?

No, that sounds wrong in standard French. You need the article la before glace:

✅ J'aime la glace à la vanille.
❌ J'aime glace à la vanille.

French nouns almost always require a determiner (article, possessive, demonstrative, etc.). Leaving it out the way English sometimes does (I like ice cream) is not normally possible.

Can we say J'aime la glace de vanille?

You could say glace de vanille, but for a flavor it is not the most natural choice. The idiomatic phrase for ice cream flavors is glace à la vanille.

glace à la vanille = vanilla ice cream (standard)
glace de vanille would tend to emphasize “made of vanilla” as a substance, which is not how people normally talk about ice cream flavors.

In everyday speech and on menus, you should stick with à la vanille for flavors.

What does the present tense J'aime mean in English: I like or I am liking?

French has only one present tense form here (j'aime), and it covers both:

J'aime la glace.
- Normally translated as I like ice cream.
- It can also function like I love ice cream, depending on context and tone.

French doesn’t have a separate -ing present progressive like English. Context tells you whether it’s a general habit/preference or something happening right now.

Does aimer mean to like or to love?

Aimer can mean both to like and to love; the meaning depends on the object and sometimes on context.

With things (food, music, activities):

J'aime la glace. = I like ice cream / I love ice cream (both are possible)
J'aime le football. = I like football.

With people:

J'aime Marie. usually means I am in love with Marie rather than I like Marie.
To say I like Marie (platonically), French often uses:
- J'aime bien Marie.
- J'aime beaucoup Marie.
- or J'apprécie Marie.

So in your sentence, with a food item, J'aime is safely I like or I love in the enthusiastic sense.

Can the word order change, like J'aime à la vanille la glace?

No, that would sound very unnatural. The normal word order is:

Subject + verb + main noun (+ modifier)

So:

J'aime la glace à la vanille. ✅
J'aime la glace (surtout) à la vanille. ✅ (you can add adverbs like surtout, particulièrement)
J'aime à la vanille la glace. ❌ (wrong order for modern French)

The modifier à la vanille follows the noun glace, just as in many other noun + modifier patterns:

un café au lait
une tarte aux pommes

How do you pronounce J'aime la glace à la vanille?

Approximate pronunciation in IPA and with English hints:

J'aime → /ʒɛm/
- /ʒ/ like the s in measure or vision
- sounds like zhem
la → /la/
- l as in let, a as in father
glace → /glas/
- gla like glah
- final -ce is /s/; the final e is silent: glas
à → /a/
- like a in father
la → /la/ again
vanille → /vanij/
- va like vah
- ni like nee
- lle here is like a y sound: vah-nee-y

Altogether, roughly: “Zhem la glas a la vah-nee-y.”
There are no liaisons in this sentence (no extra linking consonants pronounced between words).

How would the sentence change if I were talking about ice creams in the plural?

With a plural noun, the article and sometimes the meaning change:

J'aime la glace à la vanille.
- I like vanilla ice cream (ice cream in general, flavor in general).
J'aime les glaces à la vanille.
- I like vanilla ice creams (plural: different individual ice creams, or different kinds/brands).

So:

la glace → les glaces (singular → plural)
The rest of the phrase (à la vanille) stays the same because vanille is still singular, referring to the flavor, not multiple vanillas.