It's time to eat! In French, when you call everyone to the table, you say, A table, which literally means, “To the table!” And when everyone is assembled, you say Bon appétit!, which means “Have a good appetite!”

So let's get started. There's a tricky point though, and it's got a fancy name: l'article partitif (“the partitive article”). There are only four of them: du, de la, and de l' go with singular nouns and des goes with plural nouns. But although these words are small, they do an important job — they link the verbs manger (“to eat”) and boire (“to drink”) with the foods and drinks.

The Partitive Article — L'article partitif

You can't say, “I eat fruit” in French. You have to say, Je mange des fruits, because you need a linking word between the verb and the noun. It doesn't matter which form of manger or boire you use, whether it's the one that goes with “I,” like Je bois…, or the one that goes with “they,” like “ils mangent….” The important thing is that you've got a du, de la, and de l' between the verb and the noun, like this: Je bois du lait (“I drink milk”) or Ils mangent du poisson (“They eat fish”).

Here's a chart to help you out:

Je + mange/bois + de la + feminine noun.

Tu + manges/bois + du+ masculine noun.

Elle + mange/boit + de l' + noun beginning with a vowel.

Vous + mangez/buvez + des + plural nouns.

What Are They Eating? — Qu'est-ce qu'ils mangent?

Often people ask what you ate for lunch or dinner. If they weren't at the meal, sometimes parents will even ask you what other people at your table ate. So you need to practice saying what everyone eats, and practice your article partitif, too.

Look at the following French sentences and translate them into English:

• Il mange du broccoli.

• Elles boivent de l'eau.

• Nous buvons du vin.

• Je mange des carottes.

• Tu bois du jus.

• Il boit du sirop.

• Vous mangez des cerises.

• Ils mangent du poulet.

I Don't Eat That! — Je n'en mange pas

Although it's a good idea to try and eat everything, oftentimes there's a food or two we can't eat often, or even at all. It might disagree with us, we might have health issues, or we might be too young to know that it's cool to eat lots of different things.

Saying you don't eat or drink something in French is easy. You use, appropriately enough, your ne… pas sandwich that we've used in other chapters. But watch out for l'article partitif!When the sentence is negative, all the du, de la, de l' and even the plural des, change to de. Je mange du poulet becomes Je ne mange pas de poulet, and Il boit du jus becomes Il ne boit pas de jus.

Change the following sentences from positive to negative by sandwiching the verb between ne and pas, and changing l'article partitif to de:

• Tu manges du yaourt.

• Elle boit du coca.

• Vous mangez du beurre.

• Ils mangent du porc.

• Nous mangeons des pommes.

• Je bois de la citronnade.

• Je mange de la dinde.

• Tu manges des cerises.