You will soon learn that a is the present third person singular form of avoir, the verb meaing to have, and that y is a pronoun meaning there. The phrase il y a, then, literally translates to he has there. You will see this phrase used in all French tenses. It is important to remember that verb stays as a form of have and not be.
Like in English, il y a... is not often used to point out an object. To point out an object to the listener, use voici ("over here is/are" or "right here is/are") and voilà ("over there is/are").
Lesson 1.02 - To Be
D: Where are you from?
French Dialogue ? Print version ?
audio (info ?226 kb ? help)
Where are you from? Tu es d?où?
Quentin Bonjour, Léon. Dis donc, tu es d?où?
Léon
Je suis de Paris, Quentin.
Quentin Alors, tu es français?
Léon
Oui, exactement.
Quentin Et Marie, elle est d?où?
Léon
Elle est de Marseille. Elle est française, aussi.
Quentin Merci, Léon. Au revoir.
G: Subject pronouns
French has six different types of pronouns: the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person singular and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person plural.
French Grammar ? Print version ?
audio (info ?61 kb ? help)
Subject Pronouns Les pronoms soumis
singular
je
I
1st person
plural
nous
we
singular
tu
you
2nd person
plural
vous
you
singular
il, elle, on he, she, one
3rd person
plural
ils, elles
they (masculine)
they (feminine)
When referring to more than one person in the 2nd person, ?vous? must be used. When referring to a single person, ?vous? or ?tu? may be used depending on the situation; see notes in the introductory lessons.
The pronoun it does not exist in French. Il replaces all masculine nouns, even those that are not human. The same is true with elle and feminine nouns.
In addition to the nuances between vous and tu, as discussed earlier, French pronouns carry meanings that do not exist in English pronouns. The French third person "on" has several meanings, but most closely matches the now archaic English "one". While in English, "One must be very careful in French grammar" sounds old-fashioned, the French equivalent "On doit faire très attention à la grammaire française" is quite acceptable. Also, while the third person plural "they" has no gender in English, the French equivalents "ils"
and "elles" do. However, when pronounced, they normally sound the same as "il" and "elle", so distinguishing the difference requires understanding of the various conjugations of the verbs following the pronoun. Also, if a group of people consists of both males and females, the male form is used, even with a majority of females ? however, this sensibly yields to overwhelming majority: given a group of only one male to thousands of females, the female form would be used.
