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Visiblement, vous voulez du travail vite fait, bien fait.

Is the phrase "voulez du travail" made up of:

A. vous {voulez de} le travail vite fait, bien fait.

[ with "voulez de" meaning "want" ]

or:

B. vous voulez {de le travail} vite fait, bien fait.

[ with "de le travail" meaning "some work" ]

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    It is "vouloir quelque chose" (to want something), and here quelque chose (something) is "du travail". So B is correct.
    – MorganFR
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 13:49
  • @MorganFR Hi, the eighth entry in the following link threw me off. collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/… Here, "vouloir de" is used instead of "vouloir", which led to this confusion.
    – pourrait Peut-être
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 14:01
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    in this eighth entry it is about accepting something even if it will probably bring trouble. Most of the time it is used with a personal pronoun: "Le cordonnier veut bien de moi comme apprenti." means the shoe maker accepted to teach me shoe making with the idea that I think (honestly or by modesty) that I won't be a good apprentice.
    – Anne Aunyme
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 14:29
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    Yeah, it's all the same, the general term is "vouloir quelque chose" and "quelque chose" can be anything like "de l'eau", "que tu partes" (that you leave). In the dictionary they differentiate to make it easier to understand the different ways to build a sentence with "vouloir" as in "vouloir" can be followed by "à, que, de..." and they mean different things, but they all fall under "quelque chose".
    – MorganFR
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 14:37

2 Answers 2

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In this example, plain and short, "du" is acting as a partitive article, or "de + le travail".

Anne Aunyme and MorganFR explained in the comments why it's not a preposition in your case.

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A mon avis, c'est un particle. En angliche l'on dit : You want work done well, et en français, vous voulez du travail bien fait. (On parle du travail en général. On peut dire : you want the work done well, vous voulez qu'on fasse le travail bien. (Je ne suis pas francophone né, vous savez. Donc je ne suie pas une autorité sans défautes.)

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