Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

True, usually you're asked: which one, except in case you order every day the same
one. Or in case of a very lousy cafe having only one brand available. In fact,
"une biere" (I give up the accents) means: one glass of beer, or in some cases:
one (small) bottle of beer. It's also possible to answer to "What will you
drink ? - De la biere (du vin, de l'eau). This seems not to be a partitive, but
have the meaning of "such stuff" (I don't know how this is called
grammatically).
> "A water": yes, in French too, we can say "Une eau, s'il vous pla?t
> !" (although we normally have to add: "plate", or "gazeuse", or "this
> brand". "Une bi?re !" is much more common :-)
Does this get you a beer, or a question about what type of beer to get? In
the U.S., it used to be the first, but is now changing over to the second.
In the U.K., so I understand, ordering "beer" in a pub sounds as absurd as
going to a restaurant and ordering "meat": the type must be specified.
In Italian restaurants in New York, a request for water will provoke a
question about brands (to which I reply "Tap water!"), but this is not
the general rule.



Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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