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- "Elle y est allée hier."
23 Comments
Gramatically, "y" serves as the complement of the sentence while "elle" is the subject. Être verbs like "aller" only agree with the subject and not the complement or object, so "aller" has to be conjugated according to "elle" whether or not the "y" is there.
And like Sitesurf said, "y" is considered neutral even if it replaces a complement that contains a feminine noun like "à la bibliothèque".
2263
I understand what you mean, but it would be better to refer to the gender of nouns or pronouns as masculine and feminine. The terms "male" and "female" are a biological reference, i.e., sexuality.
1971
Why not "She has gone there yesterday"? I'd say it could be used in English, if it led to a present result. Am I mistaken?
2263
Don't use present perfect tense (e.g., has gone) when there is a clear reference to a time period, e.g., yesterday, Friday, last month, etc.
2490
I'm trying to get my head around the placing of words in French (particularly with negatives, but also here). Why does the "y" come before "est"? It sounds very unnatural for my English-speaking ears, and the only logical explanation I can think of is that "aller" and its auxiliary verb must be kept together as a unit - am I somewhere near the truth on that?
If you remember "il y a" and "il n'y a pas", you will see that "elle y va / elle n'y va pas / elle y est / elle n'y est pas /elle y est allée / elle n'y est pas allée" all work alike.
Bonus for you: it also works with "en": "elle s'en va, elle ne s'en va pas, elle s'en est allée, elle ne s'en est pas allée". (s'en aller = to go (away).
2490
Thanks - remembering "il y a" will hopefully do the trick! And in the negative, the "pas" always follows the conjugated verb? Grabbing hold of the French grammar finger by finger! ;)
"She went yesterday" should be accepted, since it's far more normal to omit "there" in English even when you would need y in French: "Did she go to the cinema? -- Yes, she went yesterday." And omission of "there" in such contexts has been accepted in every other sentence Duo has given me so far in this lesson.
754
I agree with the comments below - there is I believe no need for "there" in the sentence. "On y va" or "allons-y" mean "let's go" and the "y" is there only to provide the object for the transitive verb.
754
In another sentence in this section you translate something similar as "he goes and I go" with no "there". Are you being inconsistent or am I missing something please?