Learn French: Il n'y a pas de train, mais il y a un avion. - There is no train, but there is a plane.

Il n'y a pas de train, mais il y a un avion.

There is no train, but there is a plane.

Breakdown of Il n'y a pas de train, mais il y a un avion.

not (used before the verb)

pas

not (used after the verb)

Questions & Answers about Il n'y a pas de train, mais il y a un avion.

How would I ask "Is there a train?" using "est-ce que" like in this lesson?

To turn this into a yes/no question, you put est-ce que right before il y a. Because il starts with a vowel, que drops its 'e' and becomes qu'. So, "Is there a train?" becomes Est-ce qu'il y a un train ?

How does "il y a" (there is) become negative in the first half of the sentence?

To make a verb negative in French, you put ne and pas around it. In the phrase il y a, the actual verb is a (has), but the y and the a stick together. Because y acts like a vowel sound here, ne shrinks to n'. This gives us il n'y a pas (there is not / there is no).

Why does it say "pas de train" instead of "pas un train"?

This is a very common French rule that trips up beginners! In a negative sentence, the words for "a", "an", or "some" (un, une, des) almost always change to de. Because the first half of the sentence is negative, un train must change to de train.

Why does the second part say "un avion" and not "d'avion"?

The second part of the sentence is positive ("but there is a plane"). The rule about changing un to de only happens after a negative phrase. Since this part is positive, you just use the normal word for "a", which is un.