The French pronouns en and y can be a little bit difficult to differentiate for my students sometimes so here’s a couple of explanations about when you should use them.
The french pronouns en and y are used to replace a noun or a group of nouns.
- The y pronoun is used to replace a place.
- Je suis déjà allé à Madrid (I’ve already been to Madrid)
- -> J’y suis déjà allé (I’ve already been there)
- Je vais aller en France (I’m going to go to France)
- -> Je vais y aller (I’m going to go there)
Sometimes we use the y pronoun in others situations like:
- Je vais y penser (I am going to thing about it)
- Je vais y réfléchir (I am going to reflect on it)
- J’y vais (I am on my way)
- The en pronoun is used to replace an element of the sentence starting with “de”:
- On a parlé de leurs vacances en Australie. On en a parlé.
- We talked about their holiday in Australia. We talked about it.
Or a countable element.
- J’ai acheté trois poires. J’en ai acheté trois.
- I bought three pears. I bought three (of them).
Find my other articles about the French pronouns here.
Thank you for reading this post. Feel free to share it if you liked it.
Watch a video of this content on my YouTube channel.
Book a French lesson with me on italki.