Hello, in this lesson I am having difficulty understanding why the preposition “en” is used, or even needed: “Je suis sûre que la fille en est la raison”. Would “Je suis sûre que la fille est la raison” have the same meaning?
Thank you,
Shan
Hello Shan!
Here are two links to get to know the preposition “en”:
Y: An Adverbial Pronoun That Replaces Prepositional Phrases (En also replaces de + noun with verbs and expressions that need de. Again, in French, you must include either de + something or its replacement en, even though “about/of it” is usually optional in English.)
How to Use the Pronoun EN in French - Free Lesson w/ Audio 🎧 (En replaces a THING introduced by “de, du, de la, de l’, des”)
In your sentence, it’s really better to use “en”. Béatrice is thinking: the girl is the reason why her brother don’t reply to her anymore. Remember the part 5:
“Béatrice: Il n’a pas répondu à mes courriels depuis des semaines. Je pense savoir quelle en est la raison.” = Je pense savoir quelle est la raison pour laquelle il n’a pas répondu à mes courriels.
Compare it with you sentence in the part 6:
“Paul: Comment voulez-vous que je sache pourquoi il a arrêté de vous écrire ?
Béatrice : Je suis sûre que la fille en est la raison.” = Je suis sûre que la fille est la raison pour laquelle il a arrêté de m’écrire. Wow! “en” is a good friend of the laconic people.
In French, the preposition “en” is as idiomatic as the pronoun “y”. You’ll encounter them each day, in each conversation or text.
I hope I was useful. Sorry for my bad English. If you need a better explanation, I’ll be there. Have a nice day Shan. Bye bye!
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Merci beaucoup Bedy, c’est parfait! So in this case if I were to model “en”, would it sort of mean “one of”, i.e. “I am sure that the girl is one of the reasons”?
en = for it
The girl is the reason for it.
In this structure ‘en’ shows cause. ‘En’ refers back to something previously stated.
‘En’ functions as a self-contained prepositional phrase: for it, from it, by it.
Ça l’a tellement bouleversé qu’il en est tombé malade.
It upset him so much that he became ill (from it).
(Whatever it was, was mentioned previously.)
Il a eu un cancer et il en est mort.
He got cancer and died (from it).
Elle a eu un accident de voiture et elle en est restée infirme.
She was in a car wreck which left her disabled.
lit: She had a car accident and she was left disabled (by it).
Je suis sûre que la fille en est la raison.
I’m sure that the girl is the reason (for it).
(Whatever it was, was mentioned previously. In this case, Beatrice is saying, “I am sure that the girl is the reason why he stopped writing back to me.”)
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Thank you brucenator. In my spoken lazy English, I often avoid the phrase “for it” in these cases, but it seems like in French, “for it”, and “there” (y) are more important. Are they as important in casual conversation?
I’ll be sure to study these prepositional phrases and start using them. Thanks for your detailed follow up, it has helped a lot, and I appreciate the time that you and Bedy took to help.