direct object pronouns

Question

hi can you please help me with this example
J'ai encore des cadeaux à acheter - Marie les a déjà tous achetés.
Why is this not Marie en a déjà......
I thought that if it is a partitive then you use en.
thank you for your help
Cordialement
Krissa

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Krissa !
You can only use "en" when you're replacing a group introduced by de, du, de la or des.

See also https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/the-adverbial-pronoun-en-can-replace-a-phrase-introduced-by-de

In this sentence - Marie les a déjà tous achetés. - the presence of "tous" means that the original sentence would be :Marie a déjà acheté tous les cadeaux.So no "des" here, therefore "en" is not an option in this sentence, only the direct object pronoun les is correct here.  
Bonne journée !

Answer

Hi, Krissa. I too was having issues w/ this lesson.