Forming Questions

There are several ways to ask questions in French. Depending on the question, you might use des mots interrogatifs or you might not. Regardless, note that there is an additional space between the end of a question and the “?” symbol in French. This lesson will be divided into two parts— Asking questions using interrogative words and asking questions without interrogative words.

There are several ways to ask questions, often without using an interrogative word. Let’s start with a phrase and see how it changes:

Elle est de France.

Option 1: Invert the subject and verb (put the subject after the verb).

Est-elle de France ?

When you invert the subject and verb, you are asking a genuine question. Is she from France ? Note: when a word ends in a vowel, you add -t- before “elle” or “il” or “on”: Aime-t-elle aller au cinéma ?

Option 2: To verify information, use n’est-ce pas/non at the end of the sentence to say, “right?”

Elle est de France, non ?

Elle est de France, n’est-ce pas ?

Option 3: Start the sentence with est-ce que*.

Est-ce qu’elle est de France ?

*You can use est-ce que with question words and the basic word order looks like this:

question word + est-ce que + rest of phrase

Quand est-ce qu’elle voyage à Paris ?

Option 4: Rising intonation (say it like a question).

Elle est de France ?

When you put the subject in front of the verb, it adds an element of surprise or doubt. For instance, with our current example it sound like I was surprised to hear that she was from France because I thought she was from Gabon: She is from France ?

Option 5: Invert the subject and verb (put the subject after the verb) with a question word.

Using specific question words to create a question sometimes includes changing the word order to inversion depending on placement. Be sure to include the “-” between the verb and subject with inversion:

Elle est d’où ? / D’où est-elle ?