Definite articles with "de"

Hi Tom, I believe there is no explanation to your question except that that's just the way it is. Learn it and use it. Don't think about it too much.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Bonsoir Tom, To start, I do not believe this is a hopeless question. In French there are certain verbs that require a certain structure depending on usage, i.e. venir de, venir à, etc. We might, in English, call these a fixed phrase. However, depending on what follows the verb, the sense changes. So «Je viens de France» means I come from France, so in this case venir de is followed by a complement indicating the origin of the movement. With «Je viens à lui» means I come to him/her. In this case, venir à is followed by a complement indicating the terminus of the movement. Personally speaking, I have not heard the phrase «venir à» in use so I would suspect this to be somewhat colloquial. J'espère que ma réponse vous aiderait. Bonne chance et bonne continuation dans vos études en français, la langue de Molière et qui a été utilisée par le monde français depuis l’époque d’Hugues Capet Ron (un locuteur non natif )

Thank you, but I was thinking more about the difference between “je viens de France » and « je viens du pays de Galles ». The latter is considered singular and masculine, as far as I understand. Why is the article “le” used with the masculine country (contained in the contraction “du”), while the feminine country doesn’t use an article?

Thanks. Yeah, I had a feeling, thus the "hopeless question" comment. Would it be fair to say that "en" never takes an article? That's my impression up until now, at least.