r/French • u/Agitated-Recipe9718 • 1d ago
Grammar Why is it « groupe d’étudiants » and not « groupe des étudiants » ?
I wrote “groupe des étudiants” on google docs and it corrected me to groupe d’étudiants, is there a reason it’s “de” and not “des”? Is it always de for things like the “plupart” “majorité,” “moitié” etc of nouns ?
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u/Neveed Natif - France 1d ago
It's a group of students and not a group of the students. All the other examples you cited contain a definite article.
la plupart de + les étudiants = most of + the students
la majorité de + les étudiants = the majority of + the students
la moitié de + les étudiants = half of + the students
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u/Agitated-Recipe9718 1d ago
so they would all need des? if it’s something general like a group then it’s de?
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u/Neveed Natif - France 1d ago edited 1d ago
All three of them refer to all the students, which is usually rendered with a definite article. The preposition "de" followed by a plural or masculine singular definite article has to contract.
de+le = du
de+les = des
This is not optional.
A group of students is an indefinite thing. It's not a group of all the students, it's a group of some unknown number of indefinite students.
So there is no definite article here. If there wasn't already a determiner replacing it, the default determiner to apply would be "des étudiants" (some students). But since there is a more precise determiner (un groupe de), it replaces it so you get "un groupe d'étudiants".
It works the same with other quantifiers, for example beaucoup d'étudiants (a lot of students) vs beaucoup des étudiants (a lot of the students), un nombre inconnu d'étudiants (an unknown number of students) vs un nombre inconnu des étudiants (an unknown number of the students), etc.
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u/GhirahimLeFabuleux 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Groupe des étudiants" basically mean "group belonging to the students", while "groupe d'étudiants" means "a group composed of students". As you can see, it depends on context.
From experience, I can tell you that Google Docs can often give you the wrong contextual forms for your sentences. It's up to you to check if Google Docs is bullshitting you, or if it's your mistake. If you can be a bit more specific on the context, I might be able you a bit more.
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u/ornearly 1d ago
I feel like groupe des etudiants is like saying ‘a group of the students’ instead of saying ‘group of students’
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u/Agitated-Recipe9718 1d ago
I did want to say a group of the students (my original sentence was « un groupe des étudiants qui voulaient aller au musée ») but it corrected it to “de” which i feel like seems confirmed by the comments? i put the sentence on google translate and it used de as well
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u/Nytliksen 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm french for me it doesn't mean the same thing Groupe d'étudiants they are not defined it's de des
Groupe des etudiants students are defined it's de les
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u/joshisanonymous PhD en sociolinguistique française 1d ago
You can say "un groupe des étudiants" but the meaning changes to "a group of THE students".
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u/Norhod01 1d ago
It depends the meaning of the thing you wanted to write. What would you have called it, in english ? Because both are correct in their own way.
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u/No-Weekend-6233 14h ago
I believe if you have 2 nouns being combined « de » is used when one noun is modifying the other as in la classe de français.
A student group = groupe d’étudiants À group of the students = groupe des étudiants
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u/Sensitive-Season3526 3h ago
Expressions of quantity are followed by Dr without articles. Un groupe de is no different than beaucoup de.
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u/CautiousPerception71 1d ago
I think it’s:
Groupe d’étudiants = student group
Group des étudiants = random group of students, or just group of students.
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u/TheShirou97 Native (Belgium) 1d ago
it's "un groupe de" + "des étudiants", but "de + des" always contracts to "de".
"Un groupe des étudiants" is also possible, but it would come from "un groupe de" + "les étudiants" which means "a group of the students".