Today we’ll cover the highly versatile French expression il y a, which means both “there is” and “there are”, as well as “ago”.
Il y a
there is, there are, ago
Expression origin
In Old French, the verb être (to be) was used in the impersonal expression il est (there is or literally it is). Over time, avoir (to have) was used with the pronoun y, meaning “there”.
There is, there are
These first two example sentences use il y a in the context of “there is”.
Il y a un chat noir et blanc sur le trottoir.
There is a black and white cat on the sidewalk.
We could have written this second example sentence with y a-t-il. This is the inversion structure for asking questions.
Est-ce qu‘il y a un problème ? – Non, il n’y a pas de problème.
Is there a problem? – No. There’s no problem.
Ago
Il y a also means “ago”. The structure is: il y a + time, meaning “X amount of time ago”.
Je suis arrivé en France il y a un an.
I arrived in France one year ago.
The construction il y a + amount of time + que also means “ago”.
Il y a un an que je suis arrivé en France.
I arrived in France one year ago.
The expression ça fait + amount of time + que also means ago.
Ça fait un an que je suis arrivé en France.
I arrive in France one year ago.
Weather
Il y a is also used for talking about the weather in French.
Quel temps fait-il? – Il y a du soleil.
How’s the weather? It’s sunny.
“Il y a” in different tenses
In the imperfect tense, il y avait means “there were”.
Il y avait deux filles dans la rue.
There were two girls in the street.
In the future tense, il y aura means “there will be”.
Demain, il y aura une tempête de neige.
There will be a snow storm tomorrow.
In the passé composé, il y a eu means “there was”.
Hier, il y a eu un accident.
There was an accident yesterday.
Related lessons
- Depuis – Since
- Il y a de l’eau dans le gaz (expression)
Resources
