des vs les

I'm confused as to why "des" is used (for example) in the phrase "je porte des chaussures" and is not je porte les chaussures." Are they interchangeable, or does it just depend? Merci, Julia

Salut Julia, I will do my best to explain the difference between 'des' and 'les'. 'Les' is a definite article in the plural form that is used to refer to something specific. For example, "les voitures" - "the cars". 'Des' on the other hand is a contraction of the preposition 'de' and the definite article 'les'. It can mean several different things but most commonly it means simply 'some'. For example, "des voitures" - "some cars". They are not interchangeable because as you can see above when we translate the meanings back into English as I did above. In most cases the difference between the two words is simply the difference between 'the' and 'some' and if in doubt, think of which word you would use in English and it is most likely correct. I hope this helps! - Marie-Claire

Très utile! Merci beaucoup. Julia