An informal French pronunciation that you’ll hear used very frequently is the one for il y a. During regular conversations, listen for it pronounced informally as ya.
Example:
Il y a un problème.
Informal: ya un problème
In the negative, you’ll very frequently hear it as ya pas (without ne).
Example:
Il n’y a pas de problème.
Informal: ya pas d’problème
An informal pronunciation of il y a occurs in all the tenses.
Examples:
il y a eu — informal: ya eu
il n’y a pas eu — informal: ya pas eu
il y avait — informal: yavait
il n’y avait pas — informal: yavait pas
il y aura — informal: yaura
il n’y aura pas — informal: yaura pas
These informal pronunciations occur so frequently that they usually go unnoticed.
In some forms of writing where the informal pronunciation is used (e.g., comic strip), an apostrophe is generally used in the spelling, after the letter y.
Examples:
Y’a un problème.
Y’a pas d’problème.
y’avait, y’aurait, y’a pas eu…
