# FR: en avoir de la chance



## kynnjo

The context here is a conversation between a customer and the owner of a flower shop.  The customer requests that a bouquet of a dozen roses be delivered to his home at noon, and adds, by way of explanation, "C'est notre anniversaire de mariage..."  To this the shop owner replies "Ah, elle *en* a de la chance, votre femme!  Regardez ces belles roses rouges."

I'm puzzled by the "en" here.  What does it refer to?  How would one recast the same sentence without using the pronoun (i.e. using the actual noun that it refers to in its place)?

TIA!

Kynn


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## tilt

_En _refers to _la chance_, in fact, and then can't be replaced by anything else.
Saying _Elle a de la chance, votre femme !_ would change a bit the meaning of the sentence, in my opinion, because it would suggest someone else isn't so lucky.
So just consider this as a set expression.


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## kynnjo

Thanks!

Kynn


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## scottbutcher

I'm not French speaking so it may be a bit presumptuous of me to give my opinion on this one but I'm going to anyway. _En_ is translated into English as "of it".  so personally I would translate it as "Yes, your wife is in luck regarding _that which you are enquiring about_ i.e. en= what you are referring to.  Hope that helps.


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## EliseauCanada

kynnjo said:


> "C'est notre anniversaire de mariage..."  To this the shop owner replies "Ah, elle *en* a de la chance, votre femme!  Regardez ces belles roses rouges."



C'est une expression qui s'exprime à l'oral pour souligner que cette femme a vraiment beaucoup de chance.
Un peu comme on pourrait dire :
_Et bé, y'en a du vin dans cette cave !_ (ie : il y a beaucoup de vin dans cette cave)
ou
_T'en as mis du temps ! _(ie tu as mis beaucoup de temps)

Mais je pense qu'on ne peut l'utiliser qu'à l'oral.


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## scottbutcher

You can read more about _en_ here:

french.about.com/library/weekly/aa110899.htm


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## Fred_C

scottbutcher said:


> I'm not French speaking so it may be a bit presumptuous of me to give my opinion on this one but I'm going to anyway. _En_ is translated into English as "of it". so personally I would translate it as "Yes, your wife is in luck regarding _that which you are enquiring about_ i.e. en= what you are referring to. Hope that helps.


Hi.
You are wrong about the use of the pronoun "en" in this sentence.
Here, "en" is the object pronoun of the verb "avoir", it is used instead of "la" or "le" because it refers to "de la chance" that uses the partitive article. (as always when you want to use a pronoun replacing something previously mentioned with the partitive article.)
In this sentence, you have two objects : "de la chance" and "en", so the pronoun "en" is absolutely not needed, and you could perfectly have said "Elle a de la chance, votre femme...". "EN" was added for redundancy, as it is often done in speech.


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## scottbutcher

Fred_C said:


> Hi.
> You are wrong about the use of the pronoun "en" in this sentence.
> Here, "en" is the object pronoun of the verb "avoir", it is used instead of "la" or "le" because it refers to "de la chance" that uses the partitive article. (as always when you want to use a pronoun replacing something previously mentioned with the partitive article.)
> In this sentence, you have two objects : "de la chance" and "en", so the pronoun "en" is absolutely not needed, and you could perfectly have said "Elle a de la chance, votre femme...". "EN" was added for redundancy, as it is often done in speech.



I understand the concept of redundancy completely.  What I don't understand is why you can be so sure she is not referring to what has just been said.  For example: "Avez-vous des fleurs? Oui, j'en ai.  Elle en de la chance votre femme."  In other words my question is.  What is the difference between the first "en" in my phrase and the second.  And how do you know that it is redundant or not seeing that they both refer to something that was previously said?  Your sagesse would be greatly appreciated.


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## tilt

As a pronoun, _en _is a direct object.
Because the sentence includes another direct object (_de la chance_), _en_ can't refer to anything else:
_Avez-vous *des fleurs* ? Oui, j'*en* ai.  Elle *en* a, *de la chance*, votre femme.

_If there were no other object in the sentence, this _en_ would then refer to the previous mentioned object (_des fleurs_), like the former _en _does:
_Avez-vous *des fleurs *? Oui, j'*en* ai.  Elle *en* a, votre femme._


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## calembourde

But 'en'' replaces 'de quelque chose' so I wonder whether it (subconsciously) comes from something like this:

Elle a de la chance *d*'avoir un tel mari, qui lui donne des fleurs.


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## tilt

calembourde said:


> But 'en'' replaces 'de quelque chose' so I wonder whether it (subconsciously) comes from something like this:
> 
> Elle a de la chance *d*'avoir un tel mari, qui lui donne des fleurs.


The _d'_ before _avoir _is part of the locution _la chance d'avoir un tel mari_.
_En_ doesn't replace _de quelque chose_ in such a sentence. It just replaces _quelque chose_ (_elle a quelque chose_: direct object), which happens to start with the partitive _de._


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## timpeac

tilt said:


> As a pronoun, _en _is a direct object.


So is it a spoken way of stressing the "de la chance", then, in a similar way you could say

Je l'ai déjà vu votre frère, etc, thus having "l'" and "frère"?


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## tilt

timpeac said:


> So is it a spoken way of stressing the "de la chance", then, in a similar way you could say
> 
> Je l'ai déjà vu votre frère, etc, thus having "l'" and "frère"?


Yes, that's exatly the same!


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## Montaigne

Fred C is right about "en" being redundant.
It's sheer emphasis.
You might also say "elle a bien de la chance".
"En" is not needed grammatically.
"J'en ai, des problèmes" is stronger than "j'ai des problèmes".


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## oragne lovre

I've resurrected this thread while I'm learning French.
The context, in which I've seen a similar usage of "en," is lyrics coming from la chanson française "Adieu Jolie Candy" as follows:

"Adieu jolie Candy, 
une voix t'appelle,
c'est l'heure déjà de t*'en *aller,
dans cet avion,
qui t'emmène vers l'Angleterre."

Does "en" play a role of emphasis on the phrase "c'est l'heure déjà" in this context?


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## KaRiNe_Fr

Salut oragne lovre et re-bienvenue sur ce forum ! 

Ici "en" fait partie de "s'en aller" (=partir) on ne peut pas l'enlever ("il est déjà l'heure de *t'aller" ne marche pas! ).


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## oragne lovre

KaRiNe_Fr,

La langue française est "jolie" mais elle n'est pas facile 

Merci beaucoup!


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