du dejeuner & de dormir

Hi,, May I ask about "du dejeuner" & de dormir...I know du here means de le so it becomes du....but why we did not say du dormir too... that was in lesson 1.11 "c'est l'heure du dejeuner" & c'est l'heure de dormir thank you....

Salut Nano, you are correct : "Du" is the result of the union of the preposition "de" + the masculine article "le" and it is always placed before a noun. In the sentence "c'est l'heure du déjeuner" ("It's time for lunch" or better "It's lunch time") , "dejeuner" is a masculine noun. For this reason it will be preceded by "du". This can't be applied to "dormir" as it's not a noun but a verb. I hope this helps :)

Well can one say : C'est l'heure de déjeuner since the word déjeuner is a verb too? (to lunch) Stellabelle

Salut Stellabelle, correct . you can also say that. à bientôt !

Salut, I'm still rather confused as to when to use 'de' or 'du'. Par exemple : product of Canada is termed 'produit du canada', whereas 'product of Singapore' is termed 'produit de Singapour. Is there an effective way as to when I might know when to use 'de' or 'du' before a word in a sentence, par exemple : ...perspective __de__ gestion... or ...transformation __du__ monde... Merci, Anthony

Hey Anthony, My experience so far is as long as you remember that du means "of the" (masculine) and de is simply "of", you can then translate how it is being said properly, make your own inferences and get used to the typical language usage. Re Canada/Singapore, I notice they almost always refer to Canada as "Le Canada" and therefore "Au Canada" and "du Canada" whereas with Singapore it's "Singapour"; "à Singapour" and "de Singapour". So at least they're consistent, but you just have to get used to that being the way they refer to it (much like we refer to America, but The Netherlands). On the other example, those two simply mean "perspective of management" and "transformation of the world". Hope that's clear. Last comment is remember "of the mother" would be "de la mére" because it's feminine.

. . . make that "mère" :o)