Question

French Tutorial: Introduction to Interrogatives

Answer 1

\({\bf{Interrogative~Words:}}\)
Qui? Who?
Qu'est-ce que? What?
Quand? When?
Où? Where?
Pourquoi? Why?
Comment? How?

examples:
- Qui sont-ils? (Who is it?)
- Qu'est-ce que tu fais? (What are you doing?)
- Quand est-ce qu'ils arrivent? (When are they arriving?)
- Où sont les toilettes? (Where is the bathroom?)
- Pourquoi aimes-tu ce livre? (Why do you like that book?)
- Comment ça fonctionne? (How does it work?)

Answer 2

\({\bf{Yes~or~No~Questions:}}\) (without inversion)

In the above questions, you might notice that some questions kept subject-verb in that order, whereas other questions inverted the order to verb-subject. This is also known as inversion.

First, I will cover interrogative structures without inversion. There are three simple methods to ask questions without inversion.

One way of turning a declarative sentence into an interrogative is simply to change the period to a question mark. Just as in English, you would add a rising inflection to the end, to indicate that this is a question, not a statement.

ex: Tu viens (You are coming.) vs. Tu viens? (Are you coming?)

Second, you can add "n'est-ce pas?" to the end of the sentence. This is somewhat equivalent to "right?" in English, where the asker is implicitly asking for agreement/a positive response.

ex: Tu viens, n'est-ce pas? (You're coming, right?)

Third, you can add est-ce que at the beginning.

ex: Est-ce que tu viens? (Are you coming?)

Answer 3

\({\bf{Yes~or~No~Questions:}}\) (with inversion)

Inversion is often associated with formal speech and writing. When in doubt, default to inverted structures.

Situations in which inversion is used:

- The subject is a pronoun. You might have already seen this in the beginning of this tutorial, but you must invert the subject and pronoun, and connect them with a hyphen.

ex: Est-il disponible? (Is he available?)

**exception: "je" does not typically show inversion. Est-ce-que is the preferable construction for "je" questions.

**exception to the above exception (exception-ception?) être, pouvoir, devoir --> Suis-je, Puis-je, Dois-je

Answer 4

\({\bf{Yes~or~No~Questions:}}\) (with inversion, cont.)

Negation: (with inversion)

Ne (or n' in front of vowel/h muet) + hyphen + pronoun + pas

ex: N'as tu pas faim? (Aren't you hungry?)

-t-
When the subject pronoun is il, elle, or on *and* the verb ends in a vowel, add a -t- in between the verb and the pronoun.

ex: T'écoute-t-il ? (Does he listen to you?)

Noun Subjects: require an inverted subject-verb structure, along with the appropriate pronoun
Le chat est-il sympathique? (Is the cat friendly?)

Answer 5

\({\bf{Il~y~a:}}\) (there are)

To turn this into a question:
Il y a --> Y a-t-il...? (Is there, or are there...?)

ex: Y a-t-il quelqu'un? (Is anyone there?)

Negative form: N'y a-t-il pas de...? (Isn't there, or aren't there...?)

ex: N'y a-t-il pas de gens intelligents ici? (Aren't there any smart people here?)

Answer 6

\({\bf{References:}}\)

Rochester, Myrna B. Easy French Step-by-Step, United States, McGraw-Hill Education, 2009, 52-56.

https://www.lawlessfrench.com/expressions/est-ce-que/

CollinsDictionary for French and English translations

Forvo (https://forvo.com/), a French pronunciation database with samples from native French speakers

note: I will be making a part 2, as there is more to interrogatives than what I've covered so far.