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In French, there are three types of questions: intonation questions. questions with est-ce que. questions with inverted word order. We also differentiate between yes-no questions (l’interrogation totale) and question-word questions (l’interrogation partielle).
Feb 4, 2020 · Qu’est-ce que is a French way to start a question. Literally, it’s built with three French words: Que + est + ce → “What + is + it/that?…” As a French question, it’s a longer way to ask: “What… ?” It’s correct French, but in real, everyday spoken French, we tend to ask shorter questions.
- What Does The Phrase “Est-Ce que” Mean in French?
- How to Ask Questions in French: Three Ways
- Asking Specific Types of Questions in French
- Conclusion
If we try to translate est-ce que literally, it’s essentially made up of the three French words: is it that. We can never use est-ce quein French all by itself though, as it doesn’t really mean anything on its own. The power of est-ce que comes when it’s used to introduce a question: any statement that follows becomes a question! We’ll see this in ...
Now that we’ve introduced the unique French phrase for introducing questions, let’s see all three options for how to form questions in French.
Now that we’ve covered how to form questions in French, we can see how these can apply to specific types of questions.
Now you know how to ask questions in French! We started by demystifying the vital phrase est-ce que, which doesn’t have a translation in English but whose use easily turns French statements into French questions. We then looked at the other two sentence structures for asking questions in French: inversion and intonation. We took some time to discus...
Est-ce que is the inversion of c’est que, literally, “it is that.”. Hence the hyphen between est and ce: c’est = ce + est is inverted to est-ce. Though est-ce que is widespread in spoken French, it’s much less common in writing because it’s slightly informal.
Mar 18, 2024 · One of the clearest ways to ask a question in French is to add est-ce que (pronounced like “ess keuh”) onto your question word. A lot of learners find this tricky because it doesn’t really translate into English.
Jun 16, 2021 · “Est-ce que” is nowadays mostly used to ask questions that can be answered by “oui” or “non”, and with “qu’est-ce que” (what do you…). “Est-ce que” is pronounced [S keu] and it takes elision, so when followed by a vowel or an h, it becomes “est-ce qu’il (s)” [S kil], “est-ce qu’elle (s)” [S kel] etc… “Est-ce que” means nothing by itself (watch out!
