A closer look at the definite article

Definite articles are used much more often in French than they are in English. Below is a list of the more specific uses of the definite article in French. The basic uses were reviewed in an earlier chapter.

The French definite article is used in front of the following kinds of nouns, whereas it is often not used here in English. 

Omission of the article

In some very specific cases, there is no article in French : (non exhaustive list...)

• After the prepositions en (with any type of noun) and avec, comme, sans, sous (when used with an abstract or unspecified noun)

  Je vais en Provence. / I'm going to Provence.
  Il est en avance. / He is early.

  Ils ont gagné avec panache. / They won with panache.
  Elle travaille comme ingénieur. / She works as an engineer.
  Les voleurs se sont retrouvés sans voiture. / The burglars found themselves without a car.
  Il est encore sous contrat avec le FC Nantes. / He is still under contract with Nantes FC.

• In many idiomatic expressions such as :

  avoir faim, peur, froid, chaud, soif... / to be hungry, afraid, warm, cold, thirsty...
  faire peur / to scare
  faire attention / to pay attention
  perdre patience / to lose patience

• The definite articles "le, la, les, l' " denote the actual existence of the object or person.  The loss or absence of the definite article reduces the noun to an adjective :

         C'est la responsabilité du ministre. 
            ("This is the minister's responsibility")

         C'est une responsabilité de ministre.
            ("This is a ministerial responsibility")

  Similarly, in the statement C'est un pantalon d'homme, reference is made to a type of trousers, and d'homme acts as an adjective.

Articles with professions, nationalities and religions

Professions and nationalities function in the same way :

Anne est française. Elle est infirmière.
Odile et Raymond sont des suisses moyens. Ce sont des commerçants honnêtes.

Examples of how sentences are constructed to state profession or nationality :

From the above table, we can say that...

• Professions and nationalities are treated as adjectives:

  Alain est vétérinaire.  (no article "un" in front of "vétérinaire")
  Anne et Marie sont françaises. (no article "des" in front of "françaises")

• When describing the kind of "vétérinaire" or "françaises" they are, we insert "un(e)/de(s) + adjective" into the sentence:

  Alain est un vétérinaire compétent.
  Anne et Marie sont des Françaises sympathiques. (Note the upper case...)

• The above transformation applies to all cases, except when the subject is "IL/ELLE" or "ILS/ELLES". In this case, they are replaced by "C'EST" and "CE SONT"

  Alain est un vétérinaire compétent.>>> C'est un vétérinaire compétent.
  Anne et Marie sont des françaises sympathiques.>>> Ce sont des Françaises sympathiques.