how to form question

wheather only inversion is enough to make question in french. or we have to use ou, quelle etc.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 15, 2011 at 4:40pm

Well, it depends on what type of question you're asking. If it's a "total" question-- in other words, the question can be answered by "yes" or "no"-- then you don't need any word like "où" (where), "quand" (when) etc.

Either way, you don't necessarily need inversion, which tends to be used in fairly formal usage. In everyday speech, a question in French is usually marked just by a rising tone in the final syllable of the sentence and/or by adding a word such as "alors" (="then") at the end. So:

Tu viens? = Are you coming?

Tu viens, alors? = Are you coming (then)?

You can add Est-ce que...? at the beginning, though it's not necessary:

Est-ce que tu viens? = Are you coming?

For "partial" questions (ones that can't be answered by "yes"/"no", and which question some specific information, with a "wh" word (when, what, why, how etc), then in informal speech it's common to keep "normal sentence" word order in French:

Tu viens quand? = When are you coming?

Il vient à quelle heure? = What time's he coming?

This is the word order you get in English when asking a question that expresses "surprise": "You're coming when?", but in French it's a common word order for a "normal" question.

With pourquoi, you'd normally use est-ce que like this:

Pourquoi est-ce qu'il arrive en retard? = Why's he arriving late?

And you can also use est-ce que with the other question words. This sounds slightly less informal than "Tu arrives à quelle heure?" -- it would be appropriate in writing a letter, for example:

À quelle heure est-ce que tu vas arriver? = What time will you be arriving?

Unless you really think you need it for some reason, I'd start by just avoiding inversion altogether for basic questions like this: it's complicated and not used much in day-to-day usage.

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Permalink Reply by Una Miskovic on February 2, 2012 at 5:11am

How about ''À quelle heure vas-tu venir?'' for "When are you coming?"

Is it acceptable in informal colloquial communication?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 2, 2012 at 5:25am

It's not unacceptable as such. But in practice it could sound overly formal/insistent and you will frequently find speakers opting for other versions that avoid inversion, such as Tu viens à quelle heure?.

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Permalink Reply by Benoît on February 3, 2012 at 2:28pm

Please Neil, stop teaching people to use "est-ce que"...
OK it's perfectly correct, or at least more and more used by native people, but I can't help thinking it's an "ugly" expression".

"Pourquoi est-il en retard ?"
"A quelle heure vas-tu arriver ?"
Sound better, don't you think?

*Militate against the excessive use of "est-ce que"*

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 3, 2012 at 2:53pm

Well, every individual is obviously free to choose any words/expressions at random and decide that they think they "sound ugly". For every speaker that decides to think that "est-ce que" sounds ugly, there may well be another speaker who decides to think that inversion sounds ugly...

But statistically over the language as a whole, "est-ce que" is a common part of the standard language, is generally perceived by speakers of being of a neutral style and is commonly used in everyday speech. And statistically, questions with inversion tend to be less common in everyday usage and are more a feature of what is perceived as more "formal" language.

I also wonder what exactly you mean by "sounds better". If you mean "sounds more formal", well that depends on the validity of the assumption that "more formal = better". That isn't necessarily the case (e.g. speakers may associate excessive formality with insincerity, whereas you may be trying to convince the listener that you are being sincere).

Incidentally, "est-ce que" as a fixed question marker is not some kind of neologism-- it's been part of the French language for several hundred years. It may actually turn out that its use is on the decline, e.g. if speakers are shifting more towards other types (e.g. Tu arrives à quelle heure?, À quelle heure tu arrives?). However, I'm not sure if that's actually happening.