Hi Jamie,

Thé French construction for taking something from somewhere confusingly does not use  "de" but instead uses "dans", hence the use of "y" in your   example. E.g. Il a pris la bouteille dans le frigo. - He took the bottle from the fridge.

Hope this helps,

Tom

I am obliged to you yet again, Tom, for introducing me to another French construction.  I already have to work mightily to remember:

 " "y" can replace locations introduced by the following prepositions: à, sur, chez, dans ".  

Now I get to learn all the idiomatic uses for à, sur chez, and dans!  

I'm sure there's a good dictionary of such idioms out there somewhere.  Can anyone suggest one?

Jamie

It is certainly grammatically correct to repeat the quantity/unit again. Seems a bit superfluous, though. Maybe even like there would be another possibility to take, e.g., one flask but you took one bottle.

Il en mange. -- He eats from it.
Il en mange des tranches. -- He eats slices from it.

Again, it's fine to repeat "des tranches" but it does shift the emphasis a bit.

The opinion of  a native speaker would be appreciated.

Bonjour Madame Cécile !

I went through your answer and learnt a new concept that one would use an additional quantity value to emphasise the amount.

Now, if provided with a sentence->

Voulez-vous boire une tasse de thé?-                   

 Oui, je veux en boire une. (Here, en replaces une tasse).

This implies that I want to drink one cup of tea.

But if one says- Oui, je veux en boire une tasse.(en replacing de thé). On what is the emphasis being made and how ?

Merci Madame et je vous souhaite une bonne journée!

It’s the linguistic underpinning I’m after... not the “translation”.  “Je voulais en savoir plus.”. is the meaning.  I’d like to know why and when a native speaker would add “de...” after “en” has already been used in same sentence.

En can't be used as a pronoun to replace people. See if these examples help:

Luc s'occupe de Jean. -- Luc s'occupe de lui. (NOT: Luc s'en occupe.)

Luc s'occupe des fleurs. -- Luc s'en occupe. Luc takes care of the flowers -- Luc takes care of them  

In the last sentence, en replaces des fleurs and "them" refers to an object, not a person. If you were taking of persons, you would need a different construction. 

Luc s'occupe de mes parents. -- Luc s'occupe d'eux. 

Hope that helps. 

If you read my previous post again, I did include an example using "them" referring to flowers. Since flowers aren't people, the use of "en" is OK.

Il s'occupe de ses grand-parents. Il s'occupe d'eux. -- He takes care of them (grand parents)
Il s'occupe des fleurs. Il s'en occupe. -- He takes care of them (the flowers).

i did read your previous post.  your example does not have any relevance to the example in the quizz which didnt specify whether or not ‘en’ was supposed to rever to inanimate objects or humans. It’s the specific quizz question that i am querying.