You know, in languages, there are words and expressions that we use really often. "Il y a" is one of them. It's an expression you absolutely must incorporate in conversational French especially for beginners. It's used every day by the French, and even several times a day.
What's "il y a"?
Originally, this expression comes from a Latin Gallicism that gave rise to the Old French "il est", like the English "there is". It changed over time to become "il y a".
How we use it?
Every day and several times a day! The good thing about this expression is that it will always be conjugated in the same way. So "il y a" can mean "there is/there are" "il y a une voiture" "there is a car"," il y a des voitures" "there are many cars". We'll just change the tense. In the present tense: "il y a", in the past tense: "il y a eu", in the imperfect tense: "il y avait", in the future tense: "il va y avoir", in the conditional tense: "il y aurait" etc...
Specific cases
"Il y a le facteur" = "Voici le facteur" (existential aspect)
"Il y a 3 mois" = "Ça fait 3 mois" (a notion of elapsed time)
"Il y a de quoi avoir peur" = "Il y a des raisons d'avoir peur" (justification aspect)
"Il n'y a qu'à faire" = "Il suffit de faire" (sufficiency aspect)
Want to practice the future tenses, take French lessons with me!
Comments