Module 8 of 10
Three ways to ask a question
One for speaking, one that is always safe, one for writing.
French gives you three ways to turn a statement into a question, and they are not equally useful to you. Raising your voice at the end — Tu habites ici ? — is what people actually do in speech, and it costs you nothing to learn because you already know the statement. Est-ce que in front of the statement works everywhere, in speech and in writing, formal or not; if you only keep one, keep this one. Inversion — Habitez-vous ici ? — is correct, formal and common in writing, and a beginner who leans on it in a café sounds like a textbook.
Question words behave differently from English. In speech they usually land at the end: Vous vous appelez comment ?, Tu viens d'où ?, Ça coûte combien ? Putting them at the front is not wrong, but it pulls the sentence towards the formal register, and you will hear the end-position version far more often. Note the space before the question mark — French puts one there, and leaving it out is the kind of small thing a reviewer reads as carelessness rather than as a mistake.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Tu habites ici ?You live here? — a statement said as a question
- Est-ce que tu habites ici ?Do you live here? — safe in any situation
- Habitez-vous ici ?Do you live here? — formal, and mostly written
- Vous vous appelez comment ?What is your name? — the ordinary spoken order
- Où ?Where?
- Quand ?When?
- Pourquoi ?Why?
- Combien ?How much, or how many?
Est-ce que is the one to keep. In speech the question word goes at the end — and French puts a space before the question mark.