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I don't have much time to learn French, unfortunately. I try to learn something new every day using  songs and texts that interest me to make it fun. I was translating this song Tous Les Mêmes by Stromae and I wonder why one would say " y'en a marre" who is the subject?

"Tous les mêmes, tous les mêmes, tous les mêmes et y'en a marre"

Here are some translations for this expression

http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/y'en%20a%20marre

I know the idea,  it means  I had enough or I am fed up. But I don't understand who is the subject in the expression.

 

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If you put an "il" before the "y" it should make sense ,non?  :)

I think it is just a truncated form of the expression that reflects how people actually talk  in every day speech.

Another expression is "ras le bol" (instead of "marre". )

Perhaps that is also truncated to ""ras l'bol" -I am not sure.

Thank George, yes indeed.

May be if we translate it literally it means " there are enough of them"

I am happy I understand the song now, all of it! :)

The next one Alors on dance!

Well I can't say where the actual word "marre" comes from.

Perhaps it is connected to "se marrer" ="to laugh" or "have a good time" but I really don't know.

My literal translation is not correct lol. I thought" Il y a" was there is or there are. I have to study better the uses of y and en in French.In another part of this song it says "toi t'y pensais"which is translated as "you thought it" y is then used to refere to something mentioned before.

Then you have "en"which is also used to refer to something mentioned before.

In "y'en a marre" I see them together and it was confusing.

I know I don't have to understand everything but sometimes it is difficult for me to memorize and use phrases I don't fully understand.

Your explanation and Sandra's helped me to understand it more.

:)

By studying recent French songs to improve your french you have chose the hard way lol.

The use of "il" "y" and "en" is really tricky because as it seems the same it doesn't always answer to the same rules, specially in spoken French.  Some times it's logical and sometimes it's an expression taken and used as a bloc who doesn't respect the previous rules.

What I'm trying to say is don't get frustrated at your lack of grip on those small coordination words. They are a nightmare to understand even for native speakers. In general we learn every usage by heart and stop thinking about rules. French got a LOT of things you must just learn by heart (like genders, orthography, silent letters...etc.) we are so used to it we learn grammar the same way instead of thinking about rules... I think that's the reason why in actual spoken French grammar errors are so common people don't pay attention anymore.

Hello !

Indeed George, "y" here is the contraction of "il y". As you can ear in the song the "il" is completely absorbed by the "y" and only a very experimented ear can notice the "y" is a bit longer than usual when it implies an absorbed "il".

So the real form is "il y en a marre", I would translate it as "it"s enough". "Il" is the subject but doesn't refer to someone or even something, it's a general statement like in "Il fait froid"

For "Marre" things get more complex..

"Il y en a marre" is the "general statement version of "j'en ai marre" (I'm fed up). By taking out the "je" we tend to give a wider application to the expression. "j'en ai marre" just speaks for myself, "y'en a marre" is more like everyone is fed up of everything, it express a much stronger exasperation where we don't point at a specific origin of the feeling.

"J'en ai marre" is strictly equivalent to :

"j'en ai ras le bol", "j'en ai plein le dos", "j'en ai assez"

"J'en ai plein le cul" -> This one is very vulgar ...

But only "J'en ai marre" can be transformed to the general expression of exasperation. "y'en a marre".

You usually always find a precision of the feeling's origin in the context surrounding the expression. In the song Stromae is talking about the general behavior of men in the point of view of a woman  => exasperation: "Tous les même. Et y'en a marre"

Regarding the origin of "marre" I had no clue so I looked at the very official "Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales" and found out that no one is really sure where it comes from ...

http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/marre

Maybe it comes from "se marrer" who in the 19th century meant "s'ennuyer" (to be bored) -> the "déverbal" (part of the verb) "marre" kept the original meaning of boredom and went further becoming and expression of exasperation.

On the other side "se marrer" as a verb was so used with irony/sarcasm that now we use it with its contrary meaning = rigoler = rire = to laugh.

In conclusion no one knows really where these expressions come from as they are part of spoken language and not literature... :/

Hope this helps

Very much.

Is there also a French word a bit like "marre" that means "dregs" or "lees" (as in what is at the bottom of a bottle of wine) ?

Perhaps it is an English word that I have at the tip of my tongue (meaning "dregs") .

Indeed, we have "le marc de café " (pronunciation identical to "marre"). :)

(To be honest I discovered today the right orthography of that word, I never knew it has a silent "c" in it...)

"Marc" is only for coffee, it's what's left in the filter or the bottom of the cup.

"Lie" is only for wine (technically speaking: "lie" = dregs of yeast in fermented beverages, but we only use that word for wine in everyday life). "lie" grave some expressions like "la lie de la société" ou "boire jusqu'à la lie".

For any other beverage we speak of "dépot(s)" "Il y a un dépot au fond du mon jus de pomme"

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