A couple of questions

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Permalink Reply by Annie on November 14, 2010 at 5:12am

ne pas is the negative. You insert the verb between ne and pas.
In the case of n'est pas it means it is not. Est means is.

de and du. These are the indeterminate quantity as in "some"
Du is masculine. Je voudrais du cafe.
Use de after a negative and a femine noun.
Je voudrais de la biere OR negative. Je ne veux pas de cafe.

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Permalink Reply by James H Smith on November 14, 2010 at 8:16am

May I add to Anne's explanation regarding your second point ? The use of de, is one of the first things you encounter in learning French; in fact it probably comes on the second page of most text books, after the use of the definite and the indefinite article.

In it's basic forms, de is a preposition meaning of, from, by etc. When followed by the definite article (le, la or les), typically as a determiner, it takes on a compound form, and basically means some or any:

de + la remains de la, introducing a feminine noun or phrase
de + le becomes du, introducing a masculine noun or phrase
de + les becomes des introducing a plural noun or phrase (masc. or fem.)
In the first two cases, if the noun or phrase begins with a vowel or mute "h", it is elided to de l'.

As Anne points out, when used after a negative, de is used on it's own.

With the question: Vous avez du café ? Do you have any coffee ?
The answer could be: Non, je n'ai pas de café. No, I don't have any coffee.

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Permalink Reply by Yoav on November 14, 2010 at 9:36pm

Thank you both very much, Annie and James!
You helped me a lot.

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