Extremely disappointing

Question

It is very disappointing that this lesson does not appear to have been modified to deal with the poor distinction over when to use le/la/l'/le with ne. ni. ni. The lesson clearly states "When using ni, you omit the article after ni, unless you're talking about general things and using le, la, l', les."

Yet much of the discussion here has suggested the article should be used for the specific rather than the general. Better and more examples of when and how to use articles are needed - yet this has clearly been an issue for years.

Answer

The problem is not specific to this lesson - there is widespread confusion over whether to use the definite article when generalising. I think that the following lesson should be expanded to explain the difference between verbs like aimer and verbs like manger.

Using le, la, l', les before nouns when generalising (definite articles)

Answer

From this site, it seems the rule is that the definite article does not change between affirmative and negative. https://www.carleton.edu/french/resources/language-tools/grammar/articles_negatives/

If correct, and it seems an authoritative site, that is much simpler than the explanation here. As others have noted, it does not seem to make sense that the definite article is used in general but not specific; rather it seems it should be the other way. Or there is a different definition of general and specific being used that I don't understand. My wife is native French speaker, and she couldn't make sense of the explanation in this lesson either.

Answer

The rule given on that site does seem to be much simpler to understand:

After ni… ni… the indefinite and partitive articles disappear altogether

But in order to get the questions for this lesson right, you still need to know when to use definite articles when generalising, which is different between aimer and manger, and different between French and English. In English you use the definite article only for specific things, but in French it can also be used for things in general. However, that is best explained in a different lesson.

Answer

I see this is still awaiting improvement.

Answer

Hear, Hear !