#Étoile 🪱
1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)
Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.
Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.
ils and il can be pronounced like y casually/in quebec, and is sometimes written accordingly
Ooh, okay. Well, ill try to remember that then. Luckily I dont run into quebec french often.
Can it always be like in Quebec? Like "j'y ai donné le dossier?"
Wait
Thats not a they
"Je crois qu'y ont mangé le repas."
Like that ?
yep
keep in mind this is a very casual usage
i'm also not terribly sure how widespread this is outside of QC
Ooh, well thanks! I mean, french already had words like lui, leur, etc. So it seems just convulated, but in retrospect just using y for replacing a lot of that in casual is convenient. Thank you Mr. Citrons.
Deletion of the L sound in il and ils before a consonant is common in all spoken varieties of French. This deletion can be depicted in writing by spelling it y.
Afaik Quebec French also does this before vowels
So when its not a place or subject of verbe à, treat it like il/ils for y.
Y'aiment le café.
Y n'aiment pas le café.
Y'ont bu le café.
Y n'ont pas bu le café.
Y lui a donné le café.
``Y : Au Québec, le y peut être utilisé pour remplacer les pronoms de la troisièmes personne du singulier ou de la troisièmes personne du pluriel. Y s'emploie donc pour il, ils ou elles.
ex : y travaille, y parlent.
Au pluriel, on ne distingue pas ils et elles : y viennent, y sont. Parfois, le pronom y disparaît.
ex : l'expression y sont devient sont en retard (=ils/elles sont en retard).``
You can drop the y too!? Just omit the person ???
Yeah, that can happen
... I mean, its sensible because you automatically know its 3rd person but... It feels like it goes against learning.
When the y is omitted, does the subject have to previously mentioned first ?
Yeah, exactly. The form of the verb gives you most of the information already. I see it getting omitted mostly with être.
And I don't think the subject has to be specifically mentioned, but usually when you would use a pronoun, the subject is known, I guess 🤷♂️
Think of it as a simplification of "ils sont" seen as a single unit, rather than pronoun dropping.
Also, this is all restricted to colloquial speech and not systematic even there. Please don't base your understanding of French on this kind of trivia.
Definitely learn the standard usage of pronouns before this
Vrai, sont difficiles. Tu as raison. Thank you Nired and Citrons.
Can the simplification be any verb.
Exemple :
As-tu vu mes enfants? Mangent lentement.
I would leave the pronoun there. Y mangent