KS4 · French · Year 11
À table ! Partitive and indefinite articles, preverbal use of 'y' and 'en'
Travel and tourism: Des pays francophones
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/9
Your learning goal
I can use indefinite and partitive articles accurately to describe food and drink quantities and I can recognise when 'y' and 'en' are used to shorten sentences.
1 of 9
À table ! Partitive and indefinite articles, preverbal use of 'y' and 'en': slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can use indefinite and partitive articles accurately to describe food and drink quantities and I can recognise when 'y' and 'en' are used to shorten sentences.
Key learning points
- Use un/une (indefinite article) to describe whole things, and du/de la/de l' (partitive article) for parts of things.
- Uncountable nouns, such as water or money, do not have a plural form. They are used with the partitive article.
- 'Y' can replace 'à' + [a place] to mean 'there', e.g. 'elle y va demain'.
- 'En' can replace 'de' + noun and can mean '(of) it/them', e.g. 'j'aime la confiture, j'en mange tous les jours'.
- [en] is pronounced as in ‘enfant’.
Words to know
- y
- indirect object pronoun meaning 'there', used to replace à + place
- en
- indirect object pronoun meaning ‘(of) it/them’, used to replace 'de' + noun
Common mistakes
The pronouns 'y' and 'en' go after the verb, as 'there' and 'of it/them' do in English.
'Y' and 'en' go before the verb in a present tense sentence e.g. 'elle y va' and 'elle en boit'.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Learning cycle 2 teaches Higher-level grammar. Foundation students might find it useful to recognise the uses of 'y' and 'en' but teachers may prefer not to use some or all of the practice tasks with their students in this cycle and give further practice of articles.