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The translation of "You have courage" is "Tu as du courage.", whereas the translation of "You have fear" is "Tu as peur." How do we decide when to use the partitive articles in these kind of situations?

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    Courage is the norm. There's a finite number of fixed expressions without an article that you just have to memorize: faim, soif, chaud, froid, sommeil, besoin, honte, envie, hâte, raison, tort, peur. I guess marre too. Those are the most common -- maybe there are others or archaic ones. Of course, as always happens, exceptions are few in number but dominate in usage...
    – Luke Sawczak
    Nov 25, 2022 at 12:55
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    Tu as de la peur is not common but would be acceptable, tu as courage would not.
    – jlliagre
    Nov 25, 2022 at 21:38

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First of all

  • peur is an emotion. One feels it.
  • courage is a manifest of character or simply a personality. One has or gets it

While feeling peur, we can manifest courage to face the situation. Or we manifest cerenity to think better about the situation.

I come back to your question. To have courage is not feeling good or bad. It is why we own the courage. In opposite to be scared is not having something to take any action. We don't own fear.

To conclude

  • Tu as du courage
  • Tu as de la peur or Tu as peur

The both are good.

  • Tu as de la peur en toi
  • Tu as du courage en toi

Luke Sawczak said in his comment: it became a norm sometime in the time. In my opinion it is more like a feeling.

And Jiliagre Said tu as peur is ok but as courage is a manifest tu as courage is bad.

Il hope you got your answer

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