French Grammar Explained /
The double pronouns (with EN and Y)
Tu regardes des séries ? 💻
Yeah, "Game..." wait... I'll try in French: "Le trône de fer" ⚔️
Ah très bien ! That's the québécois title and we call it "Game of Thrones" in France as well. Have you seen the latest episode?
Bien sûr !!!!!
Alors, qu'en penses-tu ?
Oh, I thought it was very... wait... again, en !
Eh oui ! Remember we use it when we don't want to repeat something. In this case:
verb + preposition 'de' + a thing/an idea
Que penses-tu de cet épisode ?
Qu'en penses-tu ?
Yes, I remember we saw it in 'j'ai besoin de...' which becomes 'j'en ai besoin'.
Très bien ! Today, another use! We've just seen how to handle some double pronoms: 'Je lui donne mon avis.' → Je le lui donne.' for example.
Now, what if we have: 'Je lui donne un avis.' ?
Hm... 'Je en lui donne.'
Almost...
Ah, I know: 'J'en lui donne.'
Close... 'Je lui en donne un.', look:
When talking about the quantity "one" (un, une) we use en + un/une :
Je donne un avis à mon ami.
I give an opinion to my friend.
Je lui en donne un.
I give him one.
When talking about undefined quantities (introduced by 'de la, du, des') we use en and it is placed in the last position:
Je donne des avis à mon ami.
I give some opinions to my friend.
Je lui en donne.
I give him some.
Bonne nouvelle ! There is no need to worry about any changes regarding the ending of the verb: it agrees with the subject like a normal sentence.
With en, we often talked about y as well...
Oh, what?! There is more??
Pas de panique ! You already use it without knowing...
If I ask you:
- Est-ce qu'il y a de la violence dans Game of Thrones ?
(what?) (where?)
You could answer:
Oui, il y en a.
There is not just violence, there is also a lot of ...
I don't want to know, merci !