Translation for "n'en est pas une"

[Stephen Lawson]

I'm puzzled by a phrase I recently heard on TV: "ils pensent que cette guerre n'en est pas une". From the context I think it could mean something like 'it was a one-off'. Am I right?

[Neil Coffey]

It's actually much simpler: it basically just means "isn't one".

You may know that French doesn't allow sentences such as:

Il y a cinq
"There are five"

French speakers always insert the word en-- effectively meaning "of them":

Il y en a cinq
There are five (of them)

Whereas saying "of them" is optional in English, inserting en is compulsory in French.

It turns out that saying a sentnce like "It isn't one" is similar-- in effect, you have to say "It isn't one of them", inserting the word en.

[Stephen Lawson]

Thanks Neil. I thought it might be as simple as it looked, but I was still struggling to write a good English translation. The best I can come up with is 'they don't think that there (actually) is a war on'.