The Simple Guide to Asking Questions in French

A big part of learning any language is asking questions.

“What exactly is the whole deal with tu and vous?”

“Where can I find some good, reliable French lessons online?”

“What’s my CEFR level, and why does it matter?”

That said, how do we ask those questions… in French?

Read on to learn all the essentials for asking questions in French!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

The French Question Words

At its simplest, asking questions in French has to do with using the right word.

These words are called interrogative words, and they can be broken into three different categories: interrogative pronouns, interrogative adjectives and interrogative adverbs.

Sound like grammatical garble? Let’s take a closer look.

Interrogative pronouns: Who/whom, what and which one

There are three main interrogative pronouns in French, and they are  qui (who or whom),  que (what) and  lequel (which one). 

Qui and que are fairly simple to use.

Primarily, qui is used when the answer is going to be a person, and que is used when the answer is going to be an object or idea:

Have you ever seen the phrase  qu’est-ce que being used to introduce a question, as in qu’est-ce que c’est (what is it)? Well, this is the same que being used here, it’s just that in the cases shown above, it’s not attached to the question phrase  est-ce que (is it that). Stay tuned for more on est-ce que later.

The interrogative pronoun lequel and its variants act a little differently. Instead of simply taking the place of a single noun, this interrogative pronoun takes the place of  quel (which) and a noun. Observe:

Sound simple? Not so fast. Lequel must agree with the gender and the number of the noun that it’s replacing. Check out what I mean:

Interrogative adjectives: Which

You know all that work you just did for interrogative pronouns? Well, sit back, weary French learner, because interrogative adjectives are easier.

They are exactly like lequel in terms of gender and number agreement, but they don’t merge with a pronoun and they don’t replace the noun.

These words roughly translate to the English word “which.” Check out these examples:

Interrogative adverbs: Where, why, when and how many

Last but not least, we have the category of question words known as interrogative adverbs:

How to Form Questions in French

Now that we have the words that we need, we need to know how to form our sentences with these words in order to properly ask questions.

Here are some different ways to ask questions in French.

Inversion: flipping the noun and verb

As you might have noticed, for this whole blog post I’ve used inversion of the noun and verb in order to ask questions. This works both with and without question words, and this is the most formal way to ask questions.

You should use this in almost all writing (except social media, of course), and you should use this method when asking questions to people of importance or people you don’t know. Here are some examples:

It’s worth noting that inversion happens with auxiliary verbs in cases of a compound verb tense, as in the last example above.

Also, a t inserts itself during inversion when the third person singular is used and the verb ends in a vowel:

Forming questions with est-ce que (is it that)

While not as formal as inversion, adding est-ce que (is it that) to the beginning of a phrase will also transform it into a question.

To form a question, you simply add this phrase to the beginning of an affirmative, declarative sentence:

In addition, question words can be added before est-ce que for questions that are not answered with yes or no:

Est-ce que is not as formal as inversion, so it’s not advisable to use it in formal writing, but it can be heard in conversation even if a speaker is talking to someone of importance.

Intonation and n’est-ce pas (isn’t it)

The following two methods for asking questions are extremely informal and should only be used in informal situations.

The first involves simply saying the statement in the declarative form but adding a rising intonation at the end to signal a question. Simply, a declarative statement becomes a question by adding a question mark and/or raising the tone of your voice at the end.

The second informal way to ask a question includes adding the phrase n’est-ce pas  (isn’t it) to the end of the declarative statement.

For example:

Where to Practice Questions in French

With all this newfound knowledge, you need to make time to practice!

You can get used to using que and qui with an online quiz.

You can also check out other quizzes on the web that will have you making all kinds of questions at Columbia.edu and Lingolia.

Another way to learn is by watching how native speakers ask questions. You could try finding some French-speaking new friends or perhaps a language exchange partner to practice with and get feedback on your question structure. 

You could also find a good French TV series to watch, maybe a police drama with interrogation scenes (lots of questions being passed back and forth!). 

So, get out there and get questioning!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

And one more thing...

If you like learning French on your own time and from the comfort of your smart device, then I'd be remiss to not tell you about FluentU.

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)