Il n'y a pas du pain - French Mistake

Mistakes will always be made in French, and now you can learn from them.

Wrong: Il n'y a pas du pain

Right: Il n'y a pas de pain

Explanation: One of the first things you learn about French vocabulary related to food is that you need to use partitive articles with it, as in je vais acheter du pain (I'm going to buy some bread). You also learn that the partitive article changes to de after a negation, but many French students forget that part. So "there is some bread" is il y a du pain, but "there isn't any bread" is il n'y a pas de pain, not "il n'y a pas du pain."

Related lessons:
   Partive articles
   De vs du, de la, des
   French food vocabulary