Breakdown of J'irai en trottinette au lieu de marcher.
je
I
aller
to go
en
by (means of transport)
marcher
to walk
au lieu de
instead of
la trottinette
the kick-scooter
Questions & Answers about J'irai en trottinette au lieu de marcher.
Why is it marcher (to walk) instead of a word ending in -ant like marchant (walking)?
In English, we say "instead of walking," using an -ing verb. But in French, when a verb directly follows a preposition like de (as in au lieu de), it must be in the infinitive (unconjugated) form. So au lieu de marcher acts like "instead of to walk."
Why use en before trottinette? I thought en was only for vehicles you sit inside.
You are remembering the traditional grammar rule! Strictly speaking, for things you ride on (rather than sit inside), the rule says to use à (like à moto or à cheval). However, in modern everyday French, people very frequently use en for almost all wheeled transport, which is why en trottinette is so widely used here.
What verb and tense is irai?
Irai is the futur simple (simple future) form of aller (to go) for je. Aller is an irregular verb, so instead of building the future tense from the infinitive, it uses the special stem ir- and adds the standard future ending -ai to mean "I will go."
Could I use au lieu que instead of au lieu de here?
Not in this sentence. You use au lieu de followed by an infinitive because the subject of both actions is the exact same person (the "I" who is riding the scooter is the same "I" who is not walking). You only use au lieu que when introducing a completely different subject for the second action.
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