FR: Let's go (to X) - pronom "y"

[johnhandleyd]

Bonjour,
I'm new to French and I'm learning on my own. I have this question:
Why is it allons-y : let's go, and when we say, for example, allons au restaurant : let's go to the restaurant, the "y" disappears?
Merci beaucoup ,
John.

 

[Greyfriar]

Hello, and welcome.

'Allons-y' means, 'let's go!' It is an interjection.

Allons-nous au restaurant ce soir? Oui, allons-y!'

 

[Kelly B]

One way for non-natives to think of it is that y is usually used to replace an à clause, so if you already have au restaurant in the sentence, you don't need y - they serve the same grammatical purpose. I don't think French people really think of it that way, though - it's just an expression.

 

[SwissPete]

More examples, to illustrate what Kelly B said:

- Es-tu déjà allé au nouveau restaurant ?
- Oui, j'y suis allé hier soir.

- Viendras-tu au concert avec nous ?
- Non, je ne peux pas y aller.

 

[johnhandleyd]

The first example was harder for me to understand since I'm reeeeally new, but the second one was really easy, so thank you! My Spanish helps too when it comes to understand french hahaha, but it also confuses me because in the first sentences, in Spanish, we would say "au le nouveau restaurant?" and sometimes I'm not sure when to use more or less articles
Thank you again though!!

 

[ehsawy]

So if someone just said "Allons" without the "y," it would sound incorrect?

 

[Maître Capello]

It would not be wrong but it would mean something totally different:

Allons-y ! = Let's go!
Allons ! = Come on!

In French, when you use verb aller in its basic sense of going to some place, you usually have to specify that place or use a location pronoun like y, even if you don't have a specific destination in mind. We rarely use aller on its own.

 

[ehsawy]

Merci.

 

[Msg83]

Depending on where you live, "allons" and "allons-y" might mean the same though. But "allons-y" is the right way to say "Let's go" in standard French.

 

[Delvo]

I'm curious why people who know French better than me didn't already say this, but...

It seems to me that the problem is solved by thinking of "y" as meaning "there".

• It perfectly fits the example sentences answering questions: "Do you want to go to the restaurant/concert?" "Yes/no, I do/don't want to go there."
• It turns "Allons-y" into "Let's go there", which doesn't always fit literally, but that's exactly the kind of extra specifier that's to be expected in idiomatic phrases sometimes; it doesn't seem to really change anything for this phrase to me.
• It even makes "Il y a" look like literally "It there has", which brings it figuratively closer to English's "There is" […].

What would be wrong with thinking of "y" this way? Does it have other uses where "there" doesn't work? I know "là" is used instead in other circumstances, and is what I get when I look up "there" in an English-to-French translation dictionary, but finding that one word of your native language equates to two or more words in the language you're learning is just how language-learning goes sometimes...

 

[Maître Capello]

It seems to me that the problem is solved by thinking of "y" as meaning "there". […]
It turns "Allons-y" into "Let's go there", which doesn't always fit literally, but that's exactly the kind of extra specifier that's to be expected in idiomatic phrases sometimes; it doesn't seem to really change anything for this phrase to me.

Yet, in many – if not most – contexts, Allons-y is better translated as just Let's go than Let's go there. Sometimes there should definitely be left off for a natural translation.

It even makes "Il y a" look like literally "It there has", which brings it figuratively closer to English's "There is"

It doesn't really mean "there", in either language. Il y a (just like "there is") should merely be thought of as an idiomatic phrase where y (respectively "there") has lost most of its sense of location.

What would be wrong with thinking of "y" this way? Does it have other uses where "there" doesn't work?

Yes, y sometimes doesn't mean "there" at all. For example:

Il a reçu ce message le matin et y a répondu le soir. → He got that message in the morning and replied to it in the evening.
Cette histoire le préoccupe. Il y pense tout le temps. → This story is bothering him. He thinks about it all the time.
Il se lève tous les jours à 6 h, y compris le week-end. → He gets up every day at 6 a.m., including on the weekend.
Ça y est ! J'ai réussi ! → That's it! I made it!

 

[ehsawy]

How you conceptualize a language is relative. I think it's helpful to think of equivalent expressions between languages both in terms of an expression that communicates the same thing as well as a literal translation. Because these two will often differ. This is how I usually think about expressions. I don't think people need to choose one or the other.

 

[Delvo]

Ya, I wasn't looking for a functional, surface-level translation; I was talking about how to think about how the internal structure & background of how the phrases work or how they got that way... like looking at the HTML & JavaScript code that creates a web page, instead of their output, the web page as interpreted by a browser.

And looking at it that way, I note that even the examples I was given, of uses of "y" where "there" wouldn't make sense, have "y" as the object of a preposition, which means they parallel the pattern of English "there" being used like "that" or "it" in compounds with a preposition:

therein = in that​

thereby = by that​

thereafter = after that​

therewith = with that​

thereto = to that/there​

therefrom = from that/there​

therefore = because of that (from the usage of "for" synonymous with "because")​

thereabout(s) = about that/there (roughly that/there, approximately that/there)​

 

[fortunatus]

The discussion touches upon the problem: does y always refers to a preceding term? The next citation (Fónagy, Dynamique et changement, p.159) shows it doesn't, so the translation by Maître Capello of Allons-y by "Let's go" is perfect, except when mention has been made of a place to go to for in this case "Let's go there" may be acceptable.

L'adverbe y qui a pour fonction de «rappeler le lieu où l'on est, où l'on va» (Le nouveau petit Robert 1994) peut, au lieu d'indiquer un endroit où l'on va, ne signaler que le fait du départ.
La dame qui reçoit la visite de l'inspecteur Maigret:
- Je vous offre un café?
L'inspecteur:
- Non, il faut que j'y aille.
(Les caves du Majestic, août 2002)
Il faut que j'y aille est synonyme de 'Il faut que je vous quitte'. Cet énoncé lié pourrait être au centre du changement. Moi, je dois y aller "Je dois vous quitter'.
Au cours d'une réception le mari demande à sa femme qui s'ennuie visiblement: «Est-ce que tu veux qu'on y aille (juin
2001). «On va y aller? » presse sa copine un jeune homme (*Est-ce qu'on part ou non?!'). Vous pouvez y aller dit la dame à la bonne qui vient de terminer son travail. Le syntagme verbal y aller a pris le sens de 'partir'