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What is the capital of Tunisia?

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What is the capital of Tunisia?

Is there any time when you can use ‘beaucoup des’?

You’re right, it would make no sense to use de in that situation. “Beaucoup de sandwiches” means “many sandwiches”, not “many of the sandwiches.”

In my view, there is nothing wrong with “beaucoup des sandwiches que ma mère a préparés.” (But note the agreement of préparés with its direct object sandwiches.)

It may be that the person you spoke to feels that “beaucoup des sandwiches” is not acceptable, or not elegant, and didn’t really understand what you were getting at, so they suggested “beaucoup de.” An alternative would be “plusieurs des sandwiches que ma mère a préparés.”

When you are referring to specific things, you use definite articles. In the case of a plural, it is “les“.

Now, “beaucoup de les” is unacceptable, since “de les” always contracts as “des“.

In your example, the sandwiches are not generic; they are those your mother prepared, so a specific thing. Your example is perfectly fine!

Now, when speaking of generic things, this would be another business:

I ate lots of sandwiches.
J’ai mangé beaucoup de sandwiches.

It is however the same logic as in English. Your instinct seems better to me than what you were told. I cannot think of any counter example at the moment.

There are two aspects in your question:

  1. the quantification over sandwich
  2. the quantification over time

« J’ai mangé beaucoup de sandwichs que ma mère a préparés. »
=> “I ate lots of sandwiches made by my mum.”

This says nothing about sandwiches made by mum I did not eat and nothing either about how many times mum prepared sandwiches. I might have eaten lots of mum-made sandwiches over time.

« J’ai mangé beaucoup des sandwichs que ma mère a préparés »
=> I ate a lot of the sandwiches my mum made.

This says I did not eat all the sandwiches made by mum and also seems to imply that we are talking about one lot of sandwiches mum made that one time.

The first sentence is a sort of indefinite, the second is a sort of partitive.

Devant un nom, l’usage est beaucoup de, quand ce nom est une entité.

Ici sandwich défini un type de nourriture préparé par la maman, et non un sandwich particulier.

Pour cet exemple beaucoup des n’est pas correct, car on se réfère à une seule entité : l’entité sandwich.

Mais pour : "Beaucoup des sandwiches que ma mère a préparé étaient délicieux !" des est correct, on peut distinguer un sandwich d’un autre, et tous ne l’était pas forcément.

Beaucoup de pain a été perdu (entité),
Beaucoup des pains de seigle n’ont pas été vendus (collection d’objets).

Beaucoup d’eau a débordé du fleuve.
Beaucoup des eaux du fleuve ont débordé.

Voir les exercices pour choisir la bonne formule.
Exemples bilingues.

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?