why is it that j'y avais manque is wrong and ca me manquait is right. The phrase was ... i was missing it so much. SoI thought it was y and it isn't -

Question

Accepted Answer

Hi Pippa,
Just to add to what Chris and Jim said , take a look at the following Kwiziq lesson to see how the verb ‘to miss something/someone' works in French-
https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/manquer-a-means-to-miss-someone-something-emotionally

Answer

The general construction is "ça manque à quelqu'un" -- Somebody misses that. If the somebody is myself, this becomes: ça me manque. -- I miss that. "I was missing it" asks for imperfect tense, which gives: ça me manquait.

The adverbial pronoun "y" usually replaces the indirect object after "à". But here the indirect object is I myself and not the object that I miss. And you can never use "y" to stand in for a person, either.

Answer

« Manquer » really means « to lack ». In French, you don’t lack something - something lacks to you. So « il me manque quelque chose ».