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Something really simple

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thecreeker:
Bonjour a tous
just a really noob question from someone who's not going to do too well tomorrow
My corrected essay came back from my teacher with her correcting "la majorite des jeunes" to "la majorite de jeunes"
in the context: "la majorite des jeunes ne comprennent les dangers que l'on rencontre pendant le nuit"
Could someone go to the trouble of explaining why or is it just a typo?

Merci d'avance

ninwa:
I did a search on WordReference because my intuition was that you were correct. I found this thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=223797

But I had another think about it and I think your teacher is correct. Remember that "des" is "de + les" - so you are essentially writing "la majorite de les jeunes" i.e. "the majority of the youths", which is grammatically inaccurate. It should be "the majority of youths" i.e. without the "les", which is why it is "de jeunes" and not "des jeunes". I hope that makes sense! I haven't touched French for a year.

thecreeker:

--- Quote from: ninwa on November 18, 2013, 02:34:24 pm ---I did a search on WordReference because my intuition was that you were correct. I found this thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=223797

But I had another think about it and I think your teacher is correct. Remember that "des" is "de + les" - so you are essentially writing "la majorite de les jeunes" i.e. "the majority of the youths", which is grammatically inaccurate. It should be "the majority of youths" i.e. without the "les", which is why it is "de jeunes" and not "des jeunes". I hope that makes sense! I haven't touched French for a year.

--- End quote ---

Ahh yes, I see now. That's quite tricky.
So I'm assuming that would be the case for all such conditions then as well, eg "la majorite de chats sont ennuyeux" ?
thanks for that :)

xenial:
Actually, it depends if the subject is specific or not!

For instance, say you're talking about your classmates. You wanna say that the boys in your class (specifically) are stupid. Then you say "la majorité des garçons sont stupides."

NB des, because it's of+the. It's the same in English: most OF THE boys (in my class) are stupid.

But if the subject was more general, say, you want to say that the majority of (all) readers are intelligent, you would say "la majorité de lecteurs sont intelligents". Note de because it's not a specific group of readers, just all readers in general.

It's the same construct in English, basically!

thecreeker:

--- Quote from: xenial on November 18, 2013, 02:55:32 pm ---Actually, it depends if the subject is specific or not!

For instance, say you're talking about your classmates. You wanna say that the boys in your class (specifically) are stupid. Then you say "la majorité des garçons sont stupides."

NB des, because it's of+the. It's the same in English: most OF THE boys (in my class) are stupid.

But if the subject was more general, say, you want to say that the majority of (all) readers are intelligent, you would say "la majorité de lecteurs sont intelligents". Note de because it's not a specific group of readers, just all readers in general.

It's the same construct in English, basically!

--- End quote ---

Parfait! makes sense now
Merci pour votre temps :)

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