The Partitive Article
So many among you asked about the partitive article that I
started wondering what was specially difficult with it. I
rummaged in Google's drawers, and (once again) found that many
exercises were not about how to use the partitive article, but
how to explain the grammar point.
Lots of exercises do not ask you to fill a blank with the right
article; they write the article and ask you to tell if it is a
contracted or a partitive article.
Except if you plan to learn French linguistics, focus on the how,
not on the why. A partitive article so closely resembles any other
article that 99 native speakers out of 100 couldn't tell them
apart in a police line up.