French Grammar 109 – Interrogative Form

In French, there are 3 ways of putting a sentence in the interrogative form.

Using intonation

The simplest way to ask a question simply involves raising one’s voice at the end of the affirmative sentence. This is mostly used in the spoken language.

For example:
Vous venez ce soir?  – Are you coming tonight?
Il est arrivé hier soir? – He arrived last night ?

Using ‘est-ce-que’

The second easiest way to form a question in French is to simply add ‘est-ce que’ in front of the affirmative sentence.

For example:
Est-ce que tu veux sortir, demain? – Do you want to go out, tomorrow?
Est-ce que vous partez, ce weekend? – Are you going away, this weekend?

Note that when the ‘e’ of ‘que’ is directly followed by another vowel an apostrophe replaces the ‘e’ of ‘que’.

For example:
Est-ce-qu’Anne quitte son travail bientôt? – Does Anne leave work soon?
Est-ce qu’elle va venir avec nous? – Is she going to come with us?

Inverting personal pronoun and verb

As the modal verb do and all its forms (‘do’, ‘does’ and ‘did’) do not exist in French, the actual interrogative form consists in inversing the personal pronoun (je / tu / il / elle / nous / vous / ils / elles) with the verb.

For example:
Veux-tu sortir, demain? – Do you want to go out tomorrow?
Partez-vous ce weekend? – Are you going away this weekend?
Va-t-elle venir avec nous? – Is she going to come with us?
A-t-il apporté quelque chose? – Did he bring something?

Note in the last examples that when 2 vowels follow each other a ‘-t-’ with hyphens is added to ease pronunciation:
Va -t- elle ?
A -t- il ?

The same model is followed when using interrogative words like: Where? When? How? What?

For example:
Où habites-tu? – Where do you live?
Quand finit-il ses devoirs? – When does he finish his homework?
Comment va-t-elle? – How is she?
Que veux-tu à manger? – What do you want to eat?

The inverting system is also applied in the use of ‘il y a’ (there is or there are).

For example:
Y a-t-il quelque chose à boire ? – Is there something to drink?
Qu’y a-t-il de l’autre côté? – What is there on the other side?

EXERCISE: 109 Interrogative Form | NEXT: 110 Negative form