Interrogative Words D’Accord 1 Leçon 4A.2

Point de départ In Leçon 2A, you learned four ways to formulate yes or no questions in French. However, many questions seek information that can’t be provided by a simple yes or no answer. Use these words with est-ce que or inversion.

Quel(le)(s) agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies.

Although quand. and à quelle heure. can be translated as when Although quand? and à quelle heure? can be translated as when?, in English, they are not interchangeable. Use quand to talk about a day or date, and à quelle heure to talk about a particular time of day.

Another way to formulate questions with most interrogative words is by placing them after a verb. This kind of formulation is very informal but very common. Note that quoi? (what?) must immediately follow a preposition in order to be used with est-ce que or inversion. If no preposition is necessary, place quoi after the verb.

To answer a question formulated with pourquoi, use parce que/qu’ (because). It’s impolite to use Quoi? to indicate that you don’t understand what’s being said. Use Comment? or Pardon? instead. Note that when qui? is used as a subject, the verb that follows is always singular.

Qu’est-ce que tu regardes? Je regarde un match de tennis. Note the use of the interrogative expression qu’est-ce que (what) in the questions below. Qu’est-ce que tu regardes? Je regarde un match de tennis. Qu’est-ce qu’Alice mange? Elle mange une pizza. To ask what people are doing, use the following construction: qu’est-ce que/qu’ subject Verb Qu’est-ce que tu regardes? Qu’est-ce qu’ elle mange?