Une et de

1.J'ai une petite amie.
I have a girlfriend.

2.Je n'ai pas de petite amie.
I don't have a girlfriend.

3. Je n'ai pas de une petite amie.
I understand the 3rd sentence is not correct.
The word 'une' should disappear. Why is that?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 2, 2009 at 10:51pm

Hello Crack1.

You can say either:

- Je n'ai pas une petite amie (means that you don't have one)

or

- Je n'ai pas de petite amie (means that you don't have any)

Mixing both (whould give something weird like "I don't have any one"?) doesn't make any sense.

The form with "de" is more common.

The form with "un/une" is used to emphasize the fact that you really have none and that you think you are the bottom of the barrel. It's often used in combination with "même" to make the emphasis even stronger.
Ex: "je n'ai même pas une petite amie". You'd say that to friends if you feel sad and jealous that they all have one and you haven't.
"je n'ai pas de petite amie" still means that you don't have a girlfriend, but it's just at the moment, it's not a big deal, c'est la vie.

"Je n'ai même pas un centime" means that you're strapped for cash. OTOH if you say "je n'ai pas d'argent", it just means that you forgot your wallet.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 2, 2009 at 11:19pm

I have a girlfriend.
I don't have a girlfriend. OR I haven't got a girlfriend.
.................................................................................................................................................
There is a difference between she is not good and she is no good.

She is no good means the person in question is useless.

She is not good means the person in question is bad at speaking French/running 100 meters/making food.

I have an old computer. It is no good. Why? It is more than 15 years old and state-of-the-art software don't work on it.

It is not good. This means it doesn't work properly. Probably the motherboard is burnt.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 2, 2009 at 11:43pm

So, is it no good having a girlfriend who's not good? :)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 3, 2009 at 3:51am

As a rough guide, indefinite determiners (un(e), du/de la/des) tend to become de when the entire sentence is negated, and when they introduce either the direct object or a post-posed subject (i.e. a subject that appears after the verb).

So typically there'd be a difference between, say:

Je n'ai pas acheté de pain
I didn't buy any bread (at all)
Je n'ai pas acheté du pain intégral
I didn't buy wholemeal bread (but maybe I did buy some other type of bread-- it's essentially the word intégral that's being negated)

A subtle implication of this is that ne ... que generally doesn't cause the change to de.

Note also the subtle difference between:

Tu n'as pas de stylo?
You don't have a pen (at all in the universe/in your bag etc)?
Tu n'as pas un stylo?
You don't have a pen (that I could borrow)?

Now a couple of advanced points. Note my precision about it being strictly the direct object or post-posed subject. So after a preposition, for example, you wouldn't usually use de:

~~Il ne sort pas avec de fille~~

Then the thing about "post-posed subject" is also a fairly advanced point, but basically it's saying that a "normal" subject doesn't take de, so the following aren''t grammatical:

~~De problème ne s'est pas produit.~~
~~De courrier n'est pas arrivé.~~

but post-posing the subject makes de possible:

Il ne s'est pas produit de problème.
No problem (has) occurred, There's not been any problem (Literally "There occurred no problem.")
Il n'est pas arrivé de courrier.
No mail has come, There's not been any mail (Literally "There arrived no mail.")

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 3, 2009 at 6:11pm

I hope the French word 'intégral' means 'whole grain' in English.
Please tell me if I am wrong.

I buy whole-grain noodles and whole-grain rice. I boycott the ordinary rice or all the other varieties of rice and noodles.

The interesting point here is no opposite word for 'whole-grain'.
Of course you could coin a word or just say 'non-whole-grain'.