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When do I use en?

As a rough guide, en placed before the verb means 'of it' or 'of them'. It can be used in many of the places where you'd say 'of it' or 'of them' in English. For example, instead of saying:

you can say:

The following section gives some more details of the cases where en is commonly used.

Different uses of en

Equivalent of 'of it/them', 'its'

As in the example above, a common use of en is as a kind of possessive, especially with nouns like 'shape', 'colour'. In such cases, English speakers would tend to say either 'the colour of it/them' 'the shape of it/them' or else 'its/their colour' (or even just 'the colour', 'the shape'):

Note that it is generally possible to use a normal possessive (son, sa, ses, leur(s)) instead.

Use with numbers and quantities

A common use of en is with a number or quantity. Note that in such cases, its common to omit the 'of it/them' in English. But in French, en is generally necessary with a number or quantity if no actual noun phrase is specified. For example:

Equivalent of 'some' or 'any'

In sentences like the following, en can be used to mean 'some of it', 'some of them'. In English, speakers tend simply to say 'some' or, in negative sentences, 'any':

Use of en alongside de...

It is possible to have a sentence with both en and a corresponding phrase with de .... This sometimes occurs for emphasis, especially with words such as beaucoup, trop, tant:

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