Present Tense – Interrogative

Introduction to French Verbs and Tenses Present Tense – Interrogative

In this lesson, we examine how to form the interrogative in French. Interrogative refers to any statement, phrase or sentence clause that functions as a question.

How do you form a question from a French verb phrase?

There are two main ways in which you can form a question statement (or interrogative) from a verb phrase in French:

Use ‘est-ce que’
Invert the subject and the verb

We’ll explore each of these methods in turn.

Using ‘est-ce que’

In order to form questions from French verb phrases, one of the most common ways is to add ‘‘est-ce que’ to the statement. For example:

Statement	Question	English
Je parle	Est-ce que je parle?	Am I speaking, do I speak?
Tu parles	Est-ce que tu parles?	Are you speaking, do you speak?
Il parle	Est-ce qu‘il parle?	Is he speaking, does he speak?
Elle parle	Est-ce qu‘elle parle?	Is she speaking, does she speak?
Nous parlons	Est-ce que nous parlons?	Are we speaking, do we speak?
Vous parlez	Est-ce que vous parlez?	Are you speaking, do you speak?
Ils parlent	Est-ce qu‘ils parlent?	Are they speaking, do they speak?
Elles parlent	Est-ce qu‘elles parlent?	Are they speaking, do they speak?

Notice that il, elle, ils and elles cause the ‘e’ to be dropped from que.

Inverting the noun or pronoun (subject) and the verb

Another way to form a question is turn the subject (pronoun or noun) and the verb around and add a hyphen between them. This can be used for all verb forms except je.

Here’s the same example as above, using parler, but illustrating the inversion method:

Statement	Question	English
Tu parles	Parles-tu?	Are you speaking, do you speak?
Il parle	Parle-t-il?	Is he speaking, does he speak?
Elle parle	Parle-t-elle?	Is she speaking, does she speak?
Nous parlons	Parlons-nous?	Are we speaking, do we speak?
Vous parlez	Parlez-vous?	Are you speaking, do you speak?
Ils parlent	Parlent-ils?	Are they speaking, do they speak?
Elles parlent	Parlent-elles?	Are they speaking, do they speak?

Notice that for il and elle, you need to insert ‘-t-‘ between the verb and the pronoun, in order to make the pronunciation easier. This is not needed if the il /elle verb form already ends in a ‘t.’ For example: Boit-il? for ‘Does he drink?’

Note

Although est-ce que is preferred for the je forms, you can use it for the following:

Suis-je? (‘Am I?’), Ai-je? (‘Have I?’), Puis-je? (‘Can I?’) and Vais-je? (‘Do I go?’)

These are rare.

Lesson Content

French Present Tense – Interrogative

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