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"J’en ai" / "d’y aller" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 8 27 June 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a response to the question: "As-tu l'intention d'aller au match?"
(Oui, j'en ai l'intention / Oui, j'ai l'intention d'y aller) What is the deal with this. Are both accepted? Do they mean the same thing? Is one preferred over the other? Is one preferred in a certain situation? There is surprisingly little in literature about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| balou67 Triglot Newbie France Joined 5233 days ago 15 posts - 31 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese | Message 2 of 8 27 June 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Both are right, both are common.
In "j'en ai l'intention", "en" (of it) = "d'aller au mach" In "j'ai l'intention d'y aller", "y" (there) = "au match" It's up to you whether you want to talk about what you intend to do, or about the place you intend to go to. EDIT: what I just said sounds a little too strict. The 2nd answer sounds more frequent, informal (but works well in formal situations too). Bonus : "d'y aller" in everyday life has only two syllabes : [dya-lé], as in English "dya know". Edited by balou67 on 28 June 2012 at 12:06am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 27 June 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure exactly what level of detail you're looking for here. Since you speak
French, I'm guessing you don't want the simple answer. At a beginner level, roughly speaking, "en" and "y" are pronouns representing prepositional phrases. They can be expanded as follows: "Oui, j'en ai l'intention" = "Oui, j'ai l'intention de ___" "Oui, j'ai l'intention d'y aller" = "Oui, j'ai l'intention d'aller à ___" For a more detailed explanation of the rules, see this article. Note that only certain kinds of phrases beginning with "de" and "à" may be replaced. There's also a number of fixed idioms like "s'en aller" which don't really seem to have a "de" form, but you'd have to confirm that with a native speaker. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 8 28 June 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks to both of you. Yes, I want the more detailed explanations. I'm at the point in my languages (except Mandarin) where I'm focusing on the more obsessive details. :)
"s'en aller" when I first encountered it some months ago seemed odd, but now it makes complete sense to me, especially in a Spanish context. It is nothing more than "irse [de ahí]". "En" standing for "de ahí", but Spanish tends to omit this if the context is clear (this is not always the case and "de ahi" is more or less required or it sounds strange). "dya-le"... yup, I know. French syllables jump from the first of a word to the last of the prior. Very important to pronounce correctly! EMK, thanks for the link. I already read it, in fact it was the source of most of my personal notes on the grammar of "y/en". It would seem there is no material difference, except what balou67 suggested, and makes sense to me, of the emphasis on intention vs location, which is worth keeping in mind. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 5 of 8 28 June 2012 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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If I may join, I feel that none of them would come as an answer to "As-tu l'intention d'aller au match?". I would only say "Oui", "Non", "peut-être" or some other possibility adverb.
I would answer "Oui, j'en ai l'intention" probably with the reinforcing adverb "bien" : "j'en ai bien l'intention!". But I would answer that to the question "Tu vas voir le match?", and certainly not to a question already asking if this is my intention. As for "j'ai l'intention d'y aller", I don't think I would use it as an answer, but more in the general conversation (talking about the match, for instance, but not in answer to a question). I don't think that helps in terms of grammar, but perhaps in terms of "naturalness" of usage. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 6 of 8 28 June 2012 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
I thought it's a phonetic rule. Was I wrong? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5813 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 8 28 June 2012 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||
That must be a regional or some kind of fansy new generation thing because I don't see any reason to change the proper way [dy-alé] to [dya-lé] which sounds very odd. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 8 of 8 29 June 2012 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
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It's quite clear that if you said "J'ai l'intention d'y aller", you would pronounce 3 syllables in "d'y aller", because "J'ai l'intention de" sounds quite high on the scale of register.
However, if I said (as I do normally when I speak French) "j'ai pas envie d'y aller", I would definitely say [dyalé]. Addmitedly, I'm not yet a quarter of century old, but I think this is quite common. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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