#en, again

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turbid cloudBOT
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<en, again>

fair sonnet
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because the object is a partitive

turbid cloudBOT
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en, again

celest bridge
fair sonnet
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for instance:
je veux la pomme => je la veux
je veux de l'eau => j'en veux (partitive because "eau" is uncountable)
je veux une pomme => j'en veux une (en is used for numbers)

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as long as it's not specific (le, la, les) it uses "en"

celest bridge
fair sonnet
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well, even countables actually

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because "en" is used for such cases as well

celest bridge
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Yeah like the J’en veux une

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That’s why I’m confused too

fair sonnet
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il y a des pommes (there are apples)
j'en veux deux (I want two)
tu en veux ? (do you want some?)
si oui, tu en veux combien ? (if so, how many do you want?)

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is there anything confusing here?

celest bridge
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No

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I would boil en down to having a meaning of (of them) here

fair sonnet
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sure

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but I fail to see where your confusion lies then 🤔

celest bridge
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I want two of the apples ?

fair sonnet
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Je veux deux pommes => J'en veux deux (I want two apples / I want two)
in this case it does not replace "de", it is just also used with numbers

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un/une works as a number as well for this case (j'en veux une)

celest bridge
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So it’s just used to specify amounts?

fair sonnet
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yeah

celest bridge
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Only with veux?

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Or any verb?

fair sonnet
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any verb

celest bridge
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What about like penser à

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If it needs à

fair sonnet
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yeah, not with such verbs

celest bridge
fair sonnet
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I don't think you can shorten such cases and keep the number

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j'y pense
je pense à un X

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otherwise you'd have to use a construction like "il y en a un auquel je pense" (there's one I'm thinking of)

celest bridge
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Ok

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Ohhhh

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I see

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Yeah

fair sonnet
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that's an edge case anyway

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you might actually hear various things

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"tu vas à quelle piscine ?"
"je vais à deux différentes" => not technically "correct" but you can hear natives say stuff like that

celest bridge
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Well what should it be technically?

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I don’t understand where the problem is.

fair sonnet
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"je vais à deux piscines différentes" (repeating the object)
"il y en a deux auxquelles je vais" (using another construction to avoid repetition)

celest bridge
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Ohh ok

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Thats hard for Eng natives because we do talk like that in English.

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« I go to two different ones »

fair sonnet
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but for instance you would never hear "j'ai deux" as a full sentence for "I have two"

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rather "j'en ai deux"

celest bridge
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It’s just a pest to me lol

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Something about en reminds me of math concepts in school I couldn’t get lol

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I try to make a rule for myself about it but it doesn’t get captured by one distinct rule I feel like

fair sonnet
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it actually kinda does

celest bridge
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I know, de

fair sonnet
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  • if you want to shorten an object introduced by "de", use "en"
    ex: j'ai de l'eau => j'en ai
    -# (when to use "de" is something that will require experience more than study. Still, getting into that habit rn will allow you to improve your "en" intuition at the same time as you improve your "de" intuition instead of learning it twice)

  • if you want to shorten an object count, use "en" but keep the number
    ex: j'ai deux chats => j'en ai deux

celest bridge
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Said this way makes more sense to me for some reason

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Then we just add the idiomatic cases separately right

fair sonnet
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that's "en" as an object pronoun

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it does unfortunately have a couple use cases beyond that (as a preposition)
those are completely separate from "en" as object pronoun,it does not even have the same grammatical role

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but yeah also some idiomatic cases

celest bridge
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Ty Flynn!

fair sonnet
# celest bridge Ty Flynn!

I want to add!
You don't need to learn every rule!
For "en" as preposition specifically, it's good to be aware of some things, but you don't need to learn everything by heart. Just know enough about its general use cases to not be confused when you read it.
For "en" as an object pronoun, it is still important to know the rules of "replacing de or replacing a number". As long as you keep making that translation (doesn't matter if you mess up), it will become intuitive as you get more familiar with "de" through experience.

celest bridge