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When I use Google translate, I get: China -> Chine etc. However according to this French Country Names, la, le, l' etc are in front of country names. Is Google wrong?

If I write Distance de Australie à Chine instead of Distance de l'Australie à la Chine, will this be considered very bad French?

In what situations I can write Chine instead of la Chine?

How about city names? Do I need la, le, l' etc in front of city names?

Stéphane Gimenez
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Tony
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    Liés: Règle général pour les endroits and son post précédant – Robijoe Aug 29 '16 at 18:33
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    As we told you in our previous comments, you must definitely use the definite article in French in front of country names in the sentence of the type Distance de l'Australie à la Chine. You would use the definite article after the word en, but you don't want it for what you want to say. We'd use en in Je vais en France (I'm going to France). With city names you would not use the definite article except if the name is plural. If you do not understand the answer on that matter we pointed to you earlier, we will translate it but there's no need to write another answer. – None Aug 29 '16 at 18:42
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    This question was unnecessary after your previous one at best you could edit it if you want more information on the same topic. – None Aug 29 '16 at 18:51

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In French country names have gender, so we say la France as France is considered feminine or le portugal as Portugal is considered masculine.

some country whose name begin with vowel Espagne Italie Allemagne Australie still have gender but are written with l' so we say l'Espagne.

Most of the countries have gender, but of course there is exceptions. for instance we say Cuba or Israel which don't have any le la l'

dominix
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  • Not to be picky or anything but do you have any sources with numbers to back your Most of the countries have feminine gender statement? It's just for my personnal knowledge so don't feel obligated. – Robijoe Aug 29 '16 at 18:51
  • Welcome to French Language dominix. Please visit the Help Centre to see how to write good answers. You are not really answering OP's question here. And what you are saying has already been answered. Hope to see you again soon. – None Aug 29 '16 at 19:00
  • yes : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_pays_du_monde – dominix Aug 29 '16 at 19:03
  • @Laure Well I wrote my comment before he had edited his answer. So at that point I just wanted numbers like 268 feminine country 54 masculine (which i know won't help the OP). – Robijoe Aug 29 '16 at 19:20
  • @Robijoe "Most of" doesn't mean anyhing and would never help OP, we must go by rules if there any and learn the exceptions. So countyr names ending with ie are feminine except a few. And of course let's not forget countries that are plural, which are neither masculine nor feminine. – None Aug 29 '16 at 19:23
  • remove feminine – dominix Aug 29 '16 at 19:39