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The French sentence "J'y crois pas" explained

On this page, we are going to teach you all the things you have to know about the basic phrase "J'y crois pas". This include a detailed guide of what it is and how to use it in a casual conversation with an audio example. Not to mention the useful things we sprinkled like synonyms, slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example and more!

English translation

• 

  Translation : I don't believe it

• 

  Register : Informal - Basic

Pronunciation example

Slow

Normal

• 

  IPA : / ʒi kʁwa pa /

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What does j'y crois pas mean?

Definition

"J'y crois pas" or "Je n'y crois pas" is a shortened way of saying "Je ne crois pas à cela" which literally means:

• Je → I
• Ne crois pas → Don't believe
• à cela → To that (In that)

Let's focus on how "ne (...) à cela" became just "n'y". In French "y" refers to "it" and " n' " is a short version for "ne", which is the negation word (like "not").

That's why, even if it's impossible to translate "n'y" directly in English, it means something like "not it". So when we say "Je n'y crois pas" we are literally saying "I don't believe it" to express "I don't believe it".

And what about "pas"? Why should we add it if we already added the negation "ne"? Because that's how you express negation in French, by using the combination: ne + verb + pas.

Even if you will discover below that we don't always respect this rule...

How to use it

If someone asks you if you believe in ghosts, you can say: "Non, j'y crois pas, et toi ?" (No, I don't believe it, and you?).

But if you do believe it, you can say: "Oui, j'y crois".

Funny stuff

Because we are lazy, we even have a shorter way to say that, and it's: "J'y crois pas".

But wait, I just told you that "Je n'y" is the negative form and "J'y" the positive form, so why use the positive one to express something negative?!

Once again, we are lazy so we consider that having "pas" after the verb is a solid enough proof that we are using a negation. So we just skip saying " n' " to save us one syllab.

Replacing "Je n'y" by "J'y" is something you will find often, especially when French people talk. Another example: "J'y vais pas" instead of "Je n'y vais pas" (I am not going).

Synonyms / Related

• Je ne crois pas à ça. ("I don't believe in that")
• J'arrive pas à y croire. ("I can't believe it")
• Je n'y crois pas. ("I don't believe it")