French - 'There is / There are' - the 'il y a' forms.

The French 'il y a' forms can get very complicated, to the point where it's just not possible / feasible to try to construct what you want to say 'on the fly' using grammar rules. Indeed, as the forms get more complicated, many become clumsy ( as in English ) and there are usually better ways the same meaning can be rephrased.

As such, it's better to learn these forms by repetition and recognition rather than trying to construct them on the fly. For example, consider the increasing level of difficulty involved here:

There is a dog on the rug:   Il y a un chien sur le tapis.
There isn't a dog on the rug:   Il n'y a pas un chien sur le tapis.
Isn't there a dog on the rug?   N'y a t-il pas de chein sur le tapis?
There was a dog on the rug:   Il y avait un chien sur le tapis.
There has been a dog on the rug:   Il y a eu un chien sur le tapis.
There wouldn't have been a dog on the rug:   Il n'y aurait pas eu de chien sur le tapis.
Shouldn't there have been a dog on the rug?   N'y aurait-il pas dû y avoir un chien sur le tapis ?
Couldn't there have been any?   N'aurait-il pas pu y en avoir un ?
Shouldn't there have been some?   Il n'y aurait pas dû y en avoir ?

In addition there are some French modals that don't have direct English equivalents and vice-versa.

For example, there is no direct French equivalent for 'may' or 'might' and these need to be rendered using different forms.

This module provides rote practice in these forms, and is suitable for A-level and advanced learners. Although there are three levels of 'difficulty,' these are split by simplicity of tense, so even the 'level 1' examples could seem very advanced for a novice.


As with all other flash cards in this system, these are affected by the "selection via" option on the parameters. By default, the 'deck' of facts is randomly shuffled every time you run it, but thereafter the facts are selected sequentially. However you might prefer to try a 'group repeat' option, which re-displays the same facts after a delay of 5 or 10 more facts. This idea is based on the 'Forgetting curve.' You can read more about this on the instructions page.