Grammaire 2: asking questions
On étudie !
There are four ways to form “yes” or “no” questions.
(a) by using a change in intonation. In everyday conversation, the most common way is to rise your voice. We have seen this already with Ça va ? where the statement Ça va is said with a questioning intonation.
(b) by simply adding Est-ce que… to the beginning of any statement. Note that Est-ce que is contracted to Est-ce qu’ when followed by a vowel/mute h.
(c) By adding n’est-ce pas? at the end of a sentence. One does so to ask for confirmation of the statement.
(d) By inversion of the subject and verb. Like English, French uses inversion to form a question in which the verb comes before the subject (i.e. Is he there?) In writing, you must connect the verb and subject with a hyphen (-).
Here is a summary of the four ways to form “yes” or “no” questions:
| Structure | Exemple | Traduction |
|---|---|---|
| Intonation | Tu habites à Vancouver? | You live in Vancouver? |
| Est-ce que (qu’) |
Est-ce que tu habites à Vancouver? Est-ce qu’elle habite à Vancouver? |
Do you live in Vancouver?
Does she live in Vancouver
|
| …, n’est-ce pas ? | Tu habites à Vancouver, n’est-ce pas?
Elle habite à Vancouver, n’est-ce pas ? |
You live in Vancouver, don’t you?
She lives in Vancouver, doesn’t she? |
| Inversion | Habites-tu à Vancouver? | Do you live in Vancouver? |
D’autres question (other questions)
Other useful questions include Qui est-ce? (to ask about people) and Qu’est-ce que c’est? (to ask about things).
Carefully look at the formulation and English equivalencies in the table below. You might have noted that the responses to both question starts with C’est (Ce + est) which reuses the same verb in the question (est). Practice asking Qu’est-ce que c’est ?
| Questions | Réponses |
|---|---|
| -Qui est-ce? (Who is that) | C’est Jaspreet/C’est une étudiante de français. (This is Jaspreet/that’s a (female) French student) |
| -Qu’est-ce que c’est? (What is that?) |
C’est un stylo. (That is a pen.) |
Ce (C’)
Ce (c’) is a subject pronoun is used to identified people and things. It refers to nouns, either masculine or feminine, singular or plural.
C’est Catherine. This is/That is Catherine.
C’est un étudiant. This is/That is a (male) student.
Ce sont des étudiants. These/Those are students.
Note
In the question Comment s’appelle-t-il ? which we have used in class (which is another way to ask about people’s identity), a -t– is inserted (with hyphens) to prevent two vowels from blending together. For example, without the -t-, the end of s’appelle would merge with il, and it could be difficult to understand.
Watch this video tutorial: asking questions with est-ce que.
Watch this video tutorial: asking questions with inversions.
Watch this video tutorial: asking questions with n’est-ce pas.
Find out more about question tags in French and when to use n’est-ce pas.
