Inversion and est-ce que

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 10, 2009 at 5:07pm

Hello Pam,

Both forms are absolutely correct and they have exactly the same meaning.

The second one is just slightly more formal. The first one would probably be the one a native speaker would pick most of the time, and it'd be acceptable in a formal context too.

Really, both are interchangeable.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on September 10, 2009 at 5:10pm

Thank you Frank!

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 10, 2009 at 5:21pm

You already know this Pam, but for the record, "qu-est-ce que" is always pronounced "kessk" (if a vowyel follows) and "kesske" or "kess" (if followed by a consonant). The "e" in "ce" is never pronounced;

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 11, 2009 at 2:06am

Pam --

The situation is quite complicated, but as a general rule, speakers tend to avoid inversion in everyday usage. Even in formal usage, est-ce que is fairly well accepted and there are some questions that simply can't be formed with inversion (present tense -er verbs essentially have no possible inverted form nowadays).

As a rough guide:
- short simple verb forms tend still to be inverted more or less frequently (fais-tu?, vois-tu?, prend-il? etc)
- 3rd person forms are reportedly more frequently inverted in everyday usage than other forms
- inversion appears to be slightly more common when the inverted verb isn't at the end of the question (so e.g. many speakers would say vous fumez? rather than fumez-vous?, but would tend to find a longer question, e.g. fumez-vous tant de cigarettes que ça? makes inversion more acceptable-- though I stress vous fumez tant...? would also be a very common form)

In general, est-ce que is a good "middle ground" between not being too formal or informal. The main problem with it is that in some types of formal writing, it can feel a bit long-winded, and the shorter inverted forms are sometimes considered more elegant.

Also, don't forget that in informal speech, it's common to use "in situ" questions, e.g. Vous avez pris quoi?, where you effectively keep the same word order as an affirmative. In informal usage at least, you should also look out for other question patterns (Quelle heure il est?, Quelle heure qu'il est?, C'est quoi que vous avez pris là? etc). As I say, the issue of question formation in French is really quite complex.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on September 11, 2009 at 3:50pm

Thank you Neil, Thank you Frank! What we would do without your conseils?? Les carrotes sera cuites!!
PTDR!!
Pam

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