#dulrame

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

candid mulchBOT
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Please be patient

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slow gust
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sounds about right

brazen trout
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the only thing I will say here is that we dont always use inversion when we make questions

où vas-tu? (most formal)
où tu vas? (less formal)
tu vas où? (least formal)

all of these work, in different situations 🙂

atomic geode
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  • où est-ce que tu vas ?
brazen trout
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yeah that also works 😅

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but you can only have one inversion per phrase
and est-ce is already inverted, so you cannot say

où est-ce que vas-tu?

honest phoenix
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so, I can say "Que tu as tué hier", n'est-ce pas?

slow gust
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nope

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what are you trying to say?

brazen trout
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what did you kill yesterday?

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qu'as-tu tué hier?
qu'est-ce que tu as tué hier

honest phoenix
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@brazen trout but you just said you didn't need to always invert the sentence

brazen trout
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que t'as tué hier works but it sounds... weird

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sorry i dont know why

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😅

honest phoenix
slow gust
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que tu as tué hier doesn't mean "what did you kill ?"
it's obligatority a dependant clause

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"j'ai vu le cerf que tu as tué hier" → I saw the deer you killed yesterday

honest phoenix
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what abt these

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1- Qu'as-tu mangé hier ?
2- Que t'as mangé hier
3- Qu'est-ce que t'as mangé hier ?
4- T'as mangé quoi hier ?

slow gust
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2 doesn't work

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and you should note that « t'as » is an informal contraction, you shouldn't use it in writing other than informal stuff like texting and discord

honest phoenix
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i see

honest phoenix
slow gust
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not all question words work identically

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also, "où tu vas ?" is quite informal

honest phoenix
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which ones can I use in this type of sentences "où tu vas?"

slow gust
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I couldn't list them all

honest phoenix
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I'm confused

forest comet
# honest phoenix I'm confused

There are eleven major question words with six major ones: qui (who), que/quoi (what), pourquoi (why), où (where), quand (when), comment (how); your basic 5W + 1H. « qui (who) » is a subject word so it doesn't do inversion, and the rest does. So, for your example of « où », you can go – from most to least formal :
(1) où vas-tu ?
(2) où est-ce que tu vas ?
(3) où tu vas ? tu vas où ?
Which corresponds to (1) inversion, (2) est-ce que, (3) intonation. For intonation I've listed two variants, one where the question word is at the start and one where the question word is at the end. Both work though I see the second (question word at the end) more.

It's with number three – intonation – that your question of why « Que t'as » doesn't work, and it has to do with how « que/quoi (what) » works. Basically, the default form is « quoi (what) » but it becomes « que » when placed at the start of a phrase. The thing is that « que » is an object word therefore it always wants inversion. Unlike « pourquoi, où, quand » whose forms stay the same, « que » has another form, « quoi », so when you have « que » that is not followed by inversion, the question word has a tendency to go to the back and become « quoi ». It's why, when we map that triple structure with « que/quoi », the intonation bit only has one variant:
(1) que fais-tu ?
(2) qu'est-ce que tu fais ?
(3) tu fais quoi ?

honest phoenix
forest comet