Vocabulaire des matières avec des objets du quotidien

How do you say what something is made of in French?

English stacks nouns together: leather bag, wool jumper, wooden case. French puts en between them instead — un sac en cuir, un pull en laine, une valise en bois. The material stays a plain noun and takes no article, so once you have the material word you can build the phrase yourself: en plastique, en carton, en tissu, en fer, en liège.

De does the same job in a more written register — une table de bois — while en is the everyday default in speech. The pattern also goes figurative: un cœur en or is “a heart of gold,” and une santé de fer is iron-clad health.