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So far the second most annoying thing about French (the first is the base-20 counting system) is the gratuitous use of various "...est-ce que..." constructs in interrogatives.  The more efficient way to ask a question, in my opinion, is simply to invert the subject and verb.

Examples:

(1) Qu'est-ce que tu manges?

(2) Que manges-tu?

Why does sentence (1) seem much more common?  Is (2) considered too direct or rude, as it might be in Japanese or other languages with ridiculously thin-skinned rules of pragmatics?  If I choose to use inverted questions as my predominant speaking/writing style, will I seem odd (at least, more than usual :)) to native speakers?

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Why does sentence (1) seem much more common? 

It depends on many things.

The instruction, social level, geographic region, age of the people, ...

The (1) sentence is more usual in usual speaking language for questions with "que".

But you can use the (2) one, it is more formal but it's not completely unusual. It depends where you go and who you are speaking with. With a friend or a little child, you can use the (1) but with a customer or a professor you can use the (2).

Incidentally, another very common (in many instances, the most common) way of asking a question in ordinary informal speech is to use what is called an in-situ question. So another common alternative is:

Tu manges quoi?

Literally: "You're eating what?"

In English, this type of question is basically only used to express surprise or seek confirmation, but in informal spoken French it's a very common form of question. (N.B. In careful usage and writing, on the other hand, it would generally be avoided.)

Now, as to why... Well, there's not always a simple reason, but one factor to consider is that inversion in French isn't quite as simple as simply switching the subject and verb. The way that inversion has evolved means that there are various "corner cases": forms you would expect to be able to use but which have fallen out of use or evolved in a peculiar way, or constructions you would logically expect but for one reason or another are not used. So in fact, it turns out that inversion, at least in French, is not the "simplest" option.

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