Definite articles (le / la / les)
Summary
The definite article (le, la, l', les) corresponds to English "the" and agrees in gender and number with its noun; French also uses it for nouns taken in a general sense.
Explanation
French has three definite-article forms. Use le before a masculine singular noun (le garçon, le livre), la before a feminine singular noun (la fille, la table), and les before any plural noun, whether masculine or feminine (les enfants, les tables). The article must match the gender and number of the noun, so you cannot choose it without knowing the noun's gender.
Before a singular noun that begins with a vowel or a silent (mute) h, both le and la shorten to l'. This is called elision: l'ami (the friend), l'école (the school), l'homme (the man). Crucially, l' hides the gender — l'arbre is masculine but l'eau is feminine — so the article alone no longer tells you the gender, and you must rely on the form of adjectives or simply know the word.
Les never elides, but it triggers a liaison before a vowel sound: the normally silent -s is pronounced /z/, so les amis sounds like "lay-z-ami". This liaison is a pronunciation feature only and does not change the spelling. Before an aspirate h (h aspiré), there is no elision and no liaison: le héros, les héros (no /z/).
Beyond pointing to something specific or already known (le livre que tu m'as donné), French uses the definite article where English uses no article at all: for nouns in a general or abstract sense (j'aime le café = I like coffee), for whole categories (les chats sont indépendants = cats are independent), and with languages, school subjects, and many other generalisations. This is one of the biggest differences from English.
A practical rule of thumb: reach for the definite article whenever you mean "this thing in particular" or "this thing in general / as a whole". If instead you mean "some / an unspecified amount", you need the indefinite or partitive article, not the definite one. And after the prepositions à and de, le and les contract: à + le → au, à + les → aux, de + le → du, de + les → des (au cinéma, des enfants).
Examples
le garçon, la fille, les enfants — the boy, the girl, the children (le = masc. sing., la = fem. sing., les = plural (either gender).)
l'ami, l'école, l'homme — the friend, the school, the man (Elision: le and la both become l' before a vowel or silent h.)
J'aime le café. — I like coffee. (General/abstract sense: French keeps the article where English drops it.)
Les chats sont indépendants. — Cats are independent. (Whole category: definite article for a generalisation.)
Nous allons au cinéma. — We are going to the cinema. (à + le contracts to au.)
le héros, les héros — the hero, the heroes (Aspirate h: no elision (not l'héros) and no liaison on les.)
Common mistakes
J'aime chocolat.
J'aime le chocolat.
Unlike English, French keeps the definite article when talking about a noun in a general or abstract sense, e.g. with verbs of preference like aimer, adorer, détester. You cannot drop it: J'aime le chocolat, not J'aime chocolat.
Prerequisites
Related rules
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