There in French

For the French words’ y ‘and’ en ‘you often have 1 word in Dutch, namely’ er. That means that in French we have to pay attention when you use which word. Fortunately, there are rules for this.

Earlier we had already treated il ya; now we will elaborate on the word ‘y’. In short, ‘y’ replaces all prepositions except ‘the’. ‘And’ replaces ‘de’, the dividing article (such as ‘du’, or ‘de la’), a number and a quantity.

Y
Tu vas à Paris? Oui, j’y vais.
Are you going to Paris? Yes, I am going there.
Elle pense à ses vacances. > Elle y pense.
She is thinking about her vacation. > She is thinking about it.
Je m’habitue à la vie confiné. > Je m’y habitue.
I am getting used to life in lockdown. > I am getting used to it.

You can see from these examples that the preposition (in these cases ‘à’) and everything that comes after it (and therefore belongs to the preposition) is replaced by ‘y’.

Note: ‘y’ never refers to people. In that case, you use a personal pronoun (vous, le, lui…)
Je pense à mes amis. > Je pense à eux.
I think about my friends. > I think about them.

En
Il parle de ses vacances. > Il en parle.
He talks about his vacation. > He talks about it.
Je suis fière de ma fille. > J’en suis fière.
I am proud of my daughter. > I am proud of her.
Tu as combien de pommes? J’en ai 2.
How many apples do you have? I have 2.
On met de la crème solaire sur sa peau. > On en met sur sa peau.
You apply sunscreen to the skin. > You apply it to the skin.
J’ai des amis français. > J’en ai.
I have French friends. > I have some.

Position in the sentence
‘Y’ and ‘en’ always stand before the conjugated verb, even in the passé composé or if the sentence is negative. If there is an infinitive in the sentence, ‘y’ and ‘en’ come before the infinitive. If there are multiple personal pronouns in the sentence, ‘y’ and ‘en’ come after them. If both ‘y’ and ‘en’ are in the sentence, ‘y’ comes before ‘en’.
Il y en a 2 là.
There are 2 of them there.
Il n’y en a pas 2 là.
There aren’t 2 of them there.
Je ne veux pas lui en parler.
I don’t want to talk to him about it.