Learn to Use These Cool French Pronouns: “Y” and “En”
... Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here, and today I want talk about French
pronouns, my favorite French pronouns.
Remember, if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe.
Click on the bell for notifications, uh, and if you follow me on a podcast
service, please leave a comment.
I do appreciate it.
So why am I talking about French pronouns?
Well, I was thinking the other day about what I enjoy about different
languages and what I think makes me feel comfortable, natural, native-like
in speaking these languages, it's not the use of slang because slang
can vary from region to region.
Uh, very often it's not appropriate to use slang unless you're really
comfortable or until you're at a stage where you're confident that,
that you can use it and it's gonna be appropriate in a particular situation.
And if you are that way, please go ahead and use it.
I am perhaps conservative, my age, whatever.
However, what I find really works well in different languages.
There are usually sort of these little details that make your language more
native-like more elegant and make you feel more comfortable in the language.
So you know that I focus on input.
The language has to come into you, lots of reading and listening.
However, there is that a certain amount of time that we should spend, in my opinion,
on some of the details of the language.
I've spoken about this before.
So when it comes to French, I happen to like two French pronouns
... Okay.
Now, pronouns, there's lots of pronouns in French, they work
differently than in English.
French has gender, so, uh, you know, you've got a pronoun for ... first of
all, our, our main pronouns is sort of as a subject of a sentence ... they're,
you know, the most common ones.
Then we have the pronouns, you know, when it's a direct object
and then an indirect object.
And even there it varies, you know, ... I give it to her ... there's no ... and
these are all things well worth learning.
So like it's a demonstrative pronoun ... but none of those are my favorite.
My favorites are ...and I've even done a little lesson in LingQ about ... and
I'm gonna show you a brief walkthrough of this lesson before I go any further.
And so that for those of you who are studying French, you can see how I've
composed a little lesson using only ... and I'm gonna go through saving words
and phrases from that little lesson.
So here I am in my French page on LingQ.
I just uploaded a lesson ... so I click on this and I open it up and we will
go back to the beginning and you'll see
... ...that's not the pronoun that's in French, but ... so
you could save that as a phrase.
There are many pronouns ... you need that all the time ... are there any?
... are there many?
Okay ... there's another one.
You can grab that ... uh, ... what do you think?
What do you think of it?
Okay, so all I'm suggesting is I would recommend that you go to this
lesson ... and you will see lots of examples of, you know ... I'm not
afraid of him ... I even need it.
Uh, so, uh
... which is a very good phrase while I think about it.
... I'm going right now.
Okay, so I just use this example of a lesson that I created to
illustrate how useful the ... are, it makes your French more elegant.
And I suggest that when you come across ... in your reading
at LingQ, that wherever you...
and unless maybe you're already quite proficient at using these two little
pronouns, um, please save them all right.
Now, you have seen the lesson, uh, you've been exposed a bit to ...let me explain
... basically means to a place, to a thing, ... and it also sometimes can mean of it.
So ... normally is of it or about it ... I have a lot of it.
Uh, ... I'm afraid of it.
Uh, ... I need of it.
... and then we can combine the two.
And ... there are some ... So it's not a big deal, but it's different
from what we do in English.
There are other handy pronouns in French.
I was thinking for example, of the word ...which I don't
know, it sometimes translate...
translates into English as one ... one could imagine ... but ... often means we
... ... so it can mean like we, but it can also mean they, it's kind
of like a substitute on, uh,
... which interestingly enough reminds me of, so ... people say, They
say, ... can also mean we, and I was struck when I was in Brazil because
in Brazil, the in French, or at least in Spanish, you say ... is the people.
And I always thought ... like in Brazil you say ... meant the people
like them, third person, but it doesn't, it means we in Brazil.
So it's interesting how these in French ... which can mean we, can
mean one, can mean they in different structures, but ... is not my favorite.
Okay.
I just mentioned that in passing because I thought of the connection
to the Brazilian use of ... but
... if you can get good at using those two little French words, I think you're gonna
find that your comfort level in French and the comfort level of people listening to
you, uh, is going to take a step forward.
So a small item, I thought it might be of interest to those of you
who are interested in French, you know, And, uh, just a last thought.
Uh, you might find it interesting to look at a video that I did uh, not too long
ago where I talked about difficulties in learning French and another one where
I talked about how I learned French.
So particularly if you have thought about learning French, you might
find these two videos useful.
So thank you for listening.
Bye for now.
