2. Using intonation…
• Basically, you just ask your questions by using
your voice to tell the listener that you want to
know something.
– In English if you want to know if someone is going
out, you might say: “You going out?”
– Or if they are eating dinner? “You eating dinner?”
– In French it is the same thing: “Tu sors?” or “Tu
dînes?
3. Using “est-ce que”
• Another way we can ask a question is by
adding “est-ce que” in front of the phrase we
have…such as:
– Est-ce que tu sors? (Are you going out?)
– Est-ce que tu dînes? (Are you eating dinner?)
4. Question word + est-ce que
• When we want to ask for more information,
then we have to ask for it. The previous
examples were ones with “yes” or “no”
answers. Let’s look at some where we ask the
listener for more information:
– Pourquoi est-ce que tu sors? (Why are you going
out?)
– Où est-ce que tu dînes? (Where are you eating
dinner?”
5. The last way you can ask a question …
• Inversion: you will not need to know this quite
yet but as long as we are asking questions, this is
what it looks like. We simply take the subject and
verb and flip them around…
– Sors-tu? (are you going out? – we don’t translate the
“are” helping verb – we just add it back in in English.
We don’t need it in French.)
– Dînes-tu? (are you eating dinner?)
– Or…Pourquoi sors-tu?
– Or … Où dînes-tu?
