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In one of the examples in French conditional, I found the following sentence:

Je voudrais y aller avec vous.

But I'm not sure what the y functions for. Is it true that if you omit it to just write it as Je voudrais aller avec vous., you can express the same meaning?

I hear that y works for a personal pronoun. But I'm not sure then what it stands for in this case...

2 Answers 2

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The verb aller (when describing actual movement) requires somewhere to go to or from and that's where y comes in.

Je voudrais y aller avec vous

means I would like to go there with you.

Aller can also be used to form the future tense by meaning going to as in Je vais manger tôt - I am going to eat soon. In this case there is no movement, so y is not used.

Y is a pronoun that stands in as a dummy destination when used with aller. In English, we can just skip it.

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    Thanks. Well then does it always have to be used with y if it is used as a go verb?
    – Blaszard
    Nov 20, 2016 at 19:07
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    If you don't specify any other destination (or origin), then yes. Je voudrais aller au magasin - I would like to go to the shop. Because I mentioned an actual destination, I don't need to use y.
    – CJ Dennis
    Nov 20, 2016 at 23:51
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Les deux sens ne sont pas les mêmes, avec ou sans y . y précise le verbe aller.

y aller = aller à cet endroit, dans cette pièce, au cinéma, ...

y est un pronom adverbial, représente le lieu où l'on est ou le lieu où l'on va.

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