English - French Dictionary
/ðə/
The is the definite article in English. In French, it translates to le, la, les, or l' depending on the gender and number of the noun.
| # | Type | English | French |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | article | the article | le |
| 2 | article | the article | la |
| 3 | article | the article | les |
| 4 | article | the article | l' |
| 5 | article | the with a superlative | le |
| 6 | article | the used with the name of a member of a class to refer to all things in that class | le |
| 7 | article | the with an adjectival noun, as in “the hungry” to mean “hungry people” | les |
| 8 | adverb | the the + comparative, the + comparative | colloquial or regional usage |
I like the blue car.
J'aime la voiture bleue.
The doctor is here.
Le médecin est là.
The more you practise, the better you become.
Plus tu t'entraînes, mieux tu deviens.
French nouns have grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), so the article must agree: le (masculine singular), la (feminine singular), les (plural), or l' (before a vowel sound). Unlike English, French uses the definite article more often, including with abstract nouns and generic references.
Source: Wiktionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Audio: Wikimedia Commons