4.10 y and en — the two pronouns English has no word for — Epoché
What you will be able to do Use the pronoun that stands for a place, and for anything introduced by the preposition meaning to . Use the pronoun that stands for anything introduced by the preposition meaning of , and for a quantity. Build the phrase that says there is some, there are several, there are too many — the one in which both pronouns appear at once. Say what English does instead, which in both cases is to say nothing at all, and explain why that silence is exactly what makes these two words hard. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English J'y vais. [1] I'm leaving. On y va. [2] Let's leave. J'y suis allé. [3] I went there. J'y pense souvent. [4] I often think about it. Prerequisites : 4.9 — you need the object pronouns and their position in front of the verb, because the two pronouns here join that same queue and take the last place in it. See 4.9 Grammar if you need it. These are the two words that English speakers leave out for years. Not because they are difficult in themselves — each is a single syllable with one job — but because there is no English word whose absence you would notice. When an English speaker forgets an object pronoun, the sentence is obviously incomplete. When the same speaker forgets one of these two, the sentence is merely wrong in a way that nothing in the speaker's own language flags. So the strategy for this lesson is different from the others. Learning the rule takes ten minutes; noticing that the rule applies takes months. The practice at the end is therefore built around recognising the trigger rather than around producing the form, because the trigger is the part that has to become automatic. The trigger, in both cases, is a preposition. If the thing you are about to leave out was introduced by the preposition meaning to , or is a place, you need the first pronoun. If it was introduced by the preposition meaning of , or is a quantity, you need the second. That is the whole rule, and both prepositions are the ones you learned three lessons ago. How English does it English simply omits what these two pronouns say. Are you going to the market? Yes, I'm going. The English answer contains no word standing for the market, and none is needed. French cannot do that: the answer must contain the place pronoun. So the thing you have to learn is not a translation but an addition — something that goes into the French where nothing at all goes into the English. English has one narrow equivalent, and it is archaic. Thereof , therein and thereto are exactly the kind of word we are talking about, and they survive mainly in legal writing. If you have ever read a contract, you have the concept: a short word that stands for a phrase beginning with a preposition. French uses two such words constantly, in every register, including the most casual speech there is. English uses some and any where French uses the quantity pronoun, but not always. I have some maps onto the French pattern quite well. But I need it , I doubt it and I have three also require the French pronoun, and none of those English sentences contains anything that looks like it. The mapping is partial, and relying on it will get you about half of the cases. English drops the object of a number; French drops it only when there is no verb. How many children do you have? Three. A bare number is a perfectly good answer in French too. But I have three is different: as soon as the answer has a verb in it, the quantity pronoun has to be there, in front of the verb, even though the number itself follows the verb. Leaving it out is a very common error for English speakers, and it is completely mechanical once you see it. English has one there ; French has two words that both translate as part of it. The fixed phrase meaning there is contains the place pronoun, and when what there is happens to be a quantity, the quantity pronoun joins it, giving a sequence of three tiny words in a row. English speakers find this sequence intimidating on the page and trivial once they have heard it, because it is one of the most frequent things anybody says in French. The place pronoun Its first job is the easy one: it stands for a place that has already been mentioned. Its second job is less obvious and more important: it stands for anything at all introduced by the preposition meaning to , as long as that thing is not a person. French English J'y vais. [1] I'm leaving. On y va. [2] Let's leave. J'y suis allé. [3] I went there. J'y pense souvent. [4] I often think about it. Read the four English glosses and look for a word that stands for a place. Only the third has one: it says there . The first two glosses do not even mention going anywhere in particular, and the fourth says that . English finds a different solution each time, and French uses one word throughout, doing the same job each time. The fourth sentence is the one that teaches the general rule. Thinking, in French, is something you do towards a subject: the verb takes the preposition meaning to before whatever is being thought about. So when the subject is replaced by a pronoun, it is the place pronoun that does it, even though no place is involved. This is why calling it the place pronoun is a useful shorthand and a bad definition. There is one large exception, and it is worth learning at the same time as the rule so that the two never get confused. If what follows the preposition is a person, you do not use this pronoun. With most verbs you use the indirect object pronoun from 4.9 instead, lui or leur , in front of the verb, as in Je lui téléphone. A few verbs, the verb for thinking among them, take the preposition and one of the stressed pronouns instead, and that pair stays behind the verb where the noun was. French English Je pense à toi. [5] I'm thinking about you. Compare the fifth sentence with the fourth. Same verb, same preposition, and two completely different constructions, because