Grammar · Questions
Asking questions — yes/no and information
Use this to ask any question in French — a simple yes/no check, or an information question with a word like where, when, or why.
- one question shape: word (if any) + do/does + subject + verb
- do/does has no French equivalent of its own
- est-ce que does the job do/does does in English — it flags "this is a question" without changing word order
- drop it and you either raise your voice (intonation) or flip the verb and subject (inversion)
Où tu vas est-ce que → Où est-ce que tu vas ? ✓ (est-ce que comes right after the question word, before the subject)
Yes/no questions have the same 3 registers. Tu viens ? (intonation, casual — just raise your voice) · Est-ce que tu viens ? (neutral, everyday) · Viens-tu ? (inversion, formal/written). Same question, same meaning — intonation and est-ce que cover almost all everyday speech; inversion is more for formal or written French.
Information questions drop est-ce que the same way. Intonation puts the word at the end (Tu vas où ?, casual), inversion flips word and verb (Où vas-tu ?, formal) — Où est-ce que tu vas ? is the safe, neutral middle.
Before a vowel, est-ce que becomes est-ce qu'. Est-ce qu'il arrive ?, est-ce qu'on y va ? — and que ("what") merges all the way in: you say Qu'est-ce que tu fais ? ("What are you doing?"), never Que est-ce que tu fais ?.
