what does the "y" stand for in :

[UndertheOcean]

"il y a deux velos"

and why can't we say "ils sont deux velos"

and why no "y" in : "elle a cinq uns"

Ok,I have had it with Rosetta stones approach of teaching me like I am in kindergarten, I'm getting a good textbook.

And why is "cette ville en France" right while "cette ville dans France" wrong. what the heck is the difference between "en" "a" "aux" .

This is the dumbest approach to learning a new language I ever encountered.

on edit : oops .... double oops , I think "il y a deux .." is right , not "ils y a deux.... " , or is it " ils y as deux ..." fuck.

[old mark]

1. Well, you know the French have a diferent word

for everything (Steve Martin).

mark

[Deep13]

2. "y" = "there."

The opposite of "ici."

Prepositions have pretty loose meanings, but "en" roughly means "of" or while "a" with accent ague (ap?) roughly means "at," although it can mean "of" too. If I remember right, and I might not be, "dans" just means "in" but in different context. "Aux," if I remember right = "a" + "les" the same way that "au" means "a" + "le."

[Orrex]

3. was just discussing this with the guys at the garage yesterday.

Funny you should mention it.

[LynzM]

4. Ok, will help you out a bit!

"Il ya a" as a phrase, means roughly "there is or there are". There are two cars. You wouldn't say "they are two cars" - which is your second sentence.

"Elle a cinq ans" means, literally, "she has 5 years." French just uses the verb "has" instead of "is" to specify age.

"en France" is 'in' like a country location, "dans" is 'in' like the coffee is "in" the cup... contained within something. A page "in" a book, soup "in" a bowl. I'm not doing a great job of explaining that one, sorry.

It's not dumb, it's just that our brains are meant to learn this stuff intuitively from about birth to age 7 or so, and then after that, most people benefit from some structure and lots of this kind of contextual practice. :) Hang in there!

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Actually you did a pretty good job explaining it.

One of the biggest hurdles for people who are learning language from coursework is to get past the notion that there is a 1:1 equivalence in word usage. In this case, it requires understanding that dansis the word to use to convey the same meaning as the English word in for most common uses, but the French use a different word, en, for the phrase "in (a geographic location."

[LynzM]

6. Thanks, GC!

Yes, there is certainly not a 1:1 equivalance! I have learned French and German, and am working on teaching myself Spanish (quite slowly)... I love languages! :)

:hi:

[unpossibles]

7. there's a good description up thread, but it does get confusing

and honestly sometimes the best way to approach it is to memorize the basic rules of which word works when/where. Sometimes the rules are not strictly followed either, and French can be quite tricky. I'm really out of practice, but the best French I ever spoke was when working at a French boulangerie with some people who spoke English about as well as I spoke French. It gave us an excuse to practice with each other (and out of necessity!), but the real point I am trying to make is that eventually I found myself just thinking in French instead of translating everything verbatim. Granted, I was told I spoke French like a small child, but I could at least communicate.