En and Y: The Two French Pronouns Everyone Avoids (Until Now)

En can replace de + a noun, often expressing quantity: j’ai des pommes becomes j’en ai (I have some). Y replaces à + a place or thing: je vais à Paris becomes j’y vais (I’m going there). Usually, they precede the verb they belong to (or its auxiliary), but they follow it in affirmative commands: prends-en !, vas-y !.

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This is the deep-dive companion to the full French pronoun grid.

En: replacing de + noun

J’ai des pommes → j’en ai (I have some). Tu as besoin d’argent ? → tu en as besoin ? (do you need some?) - especially common with quantity and partitive expressions. See du, de la, des for the natural pairing.

Y: replacing à + place or thing

Je vais à Paris → j’y vais (I’m going there). Je pense à mon travail → j’y pense (I think about it).

Y can also refer to a place introduced by another preposition: je travaille dans ce bureau → j’y travaille. For a person after penser à, use a stressed pronoun instead: je pense à Marie → je pense à elle.

J’y vais: the high-frequency anchor phrase

Memorize this one phrase as your gateway - it’s said constantly in everyday French, and internalizing it builds intuition for the whole pattern.

Placement and combining

With a simple conjugated verb, put en or y before it: j’en prends, j’y vais. In a compound tense, put it before the auxiliary: j’en ai acheté, j’y suis allé.

When the pronoun belongs to an infinitive, put it before that infinitive: je vais en acheter, je veux y aller. It does not automatically go before the conjugated verb.

In an affirmative command, attach it after the verb with a hyphen: prends-en !, vas-y !. Forms such as mange and va add an s before attached en or y: manges-en !, vas-y !. In a negative command, the pronoun returns before the verb without a hyphen: n’en prends pas, n’y va pas. In va en acheter, en belongs to acheter, not va.

Classic combo phrase: il y en a (there is/are some), with y before en. See French prepositions for the de/à system these pronouns replace.