mr.moderino

[rare snow]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[exotic crystal]

No problem mr nostradamus take your time no rush thank you for the support very helpful 👍

[split light]

In French, the structure of forming questions differs from English and the language often uses a more concise method for asking questions without the need for an additional word like "do" in English

Faire would never work in this context, it means "to do" or "to make" and is used as a verb in French, not as an auxiliary to form questions like "do" in English. In English "do" is used to form questions and negatives. In French, these structures are different and do not require an equivalent word. French and English are different languages from different language families so try not to always expect things to translate with the same logic because it’ll confuse you more

[spring kite]

Often you can use "est-ce que" in French, where you would use "do" to ask a question in English

[severe bison]

Because french grammar is different, you start with "sujet + verbe + complément", if you want something longer you can use "est-ce que tu aimes l'écoles" . Faire also mean make if you translate it, does "make you like school" sound correct ? No it doesnt make sense

[viral lion]

English has do-support, which is the insertion of the verb to do to aide in negation and inversion. French doesn’t have this. There’s a detailed explanation but that’s too long so you should just read Courtney’s explanation, it’s great.

[exotic crystal]

Thank you all. I have a theory that infinite verbs (i think words before conjugation) all have the word ''To'' built in. So instead of Voir. It automatically means To see and Venir ''To come'' while in English we'd have to say the word ''To come''

I think infinite verbs become conjugated verbs based on the subject (whos doing the action) and the tense (when action happens, past, present and future)

[exotic crystal]

I still have no idea what est-ce que is. I've heard about it, but I'm completely lost on why it's used and how. Google says it has no direct meaning or translation with English

[wet temple]

I think in speaking you can make questions without it mostly and instead raising your voice, so the other person will notice that it is a question. But in writing you can’t do this, so to make clear its meant as a question you use est-ce que, as far as i know it means like est-is ce-this but you shouldn’t always translate it like that.

[exotic crystal]

Est ce que aime football. Did I do it right?

Or is it Est-ce que tu aime football

[wet temple]

This

You always need est-ce its a fixed term like aprés-midi etc

You need „aimes“ when using tu

[exotic crystal]

Est-ce que t'aime football?

[exotic crystal]

what do you mean ,,aimes. Like ,,aimes?

[wet temple]

no every verb needs the fitting form based on what you using it with

you need to conjugate the verbs in french you know

je suis, tu es, il/elle est etc.

its is j'aime - i like, tu aimes - you like, il/elle aime- he/she likes etc

https://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-french.html

i suggest you this website incase you want to check, its really helpful

[viral lion]

With 'how', it's used as a question marker; just put « est-ce que » before the subject and it becomes a question. As for 'why' it's used, it's used as a dummy inversion like English's do-support to avoid inversion.

That should be enough for you but if you want to know the linguistic reasoning for it, I can explain that. If not, you can disregard what I'll write below.

To start, English and French both ask questions by inversion where you flip the order of subject and verb.
'You can do it. –> Can you do it?'
« Tu peux le faire. –> Peux-tu le faire ? »
Both sentences start with the subject before the verb (you can / tu peux) but end with the subject after the verb (can you / peux-tu). Keep that in mind.
In English, this process used to be able to happen with every verb. You can see this happening with an example from Early Modern English like the King James Bible, made in the 17th century. Inversion as a way of asking a question is visible in Job 38:33:
'Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?'
where 'knowest thou' is an inversion of 'thou knowest'.
However, modern English lost the ability to invert any verb. Now, you can only do this with modals and auxiliaries. For example, 'He is helping you' becoming 'Is he helping you?'. There, the auxiliary verb 'to be' is inverted with the subject to form the question. What happens if you want to invert literally any other verb then? Well, there's where do-support comes in. English will put in the verb 'to do' so it can invert with that instead of the original verb; the verb to do becomes a dummy verb used only for inversion.
Example: He knows the truth ==> He does know the truth ==> Does he know the truth?
If we look at that same verse in a newer version, like the NIV made in the 20th century, we see do-support :
'Do you know the laws of the heavens?'

In French, we can still invert any verb we needed. That verse again in Louis Segond, a French translation of the Bible, would have inversion:
« Connais-tu les lois du ciel ? »
However, although we can still invert verbs, inversion in French can get rather messy. Two examples come to mind. First, if the verb conjugation ends with a vowel and the pronoun starts with a vowel, a T sound is added in writing and pronunciation as a relic of old Latin conjugation. So, if I wanted to invert « Il pense à la vérité », I couldn't just write « Pense-il … » but I would have to write « Pense**-t-**il ». This happens with every verb ending with a vowel. You might see where I'm going with this. Remember how the third person singular present conjugation of « avoir » is just the vowel « a » ? Yup, it means that every single passé composé inversion with avoir must insert that T sound.
« L'a-t-il fait ? Le professeur a-t-il parlé ? »
That second example brings us to the second part of why French inversion is messy: in general, you only invert pronouns. Because of that, if you have a subject that isn't a pronoun, like « le professeur », you have to repeat that subject in pronoun form in order for it to able to be inverted.
« Le professeur a parlé –> Le professeur (il) a parlé –> Le professeur a-t-il parlé ? »

Because of that, French innovates by adding a new clause at the start of a phrase, « c'est que », and inverting that instead. You can see the progression like this:
« Il pense à la vérité –> C'est qu'il pense à la vérité –> Est-ce qu'il pense à la vérité ? »
So, « est-ce que » becomes a dummy inversion so that you don't have to do those finicky things with inversion. You just add it before the subject and it's grammatically sound.

[viral lion]

Another thing about do-support and est-ce que : With do-support, the addition of the helper verb changes the conjugation from the main verb to that verb. In the example above, we had:
'He knows the truth –> He does know the truth –> Does he know the truth?'
As you can see, the conjugated verb changes from 'to know' to 'to do' and it's even more evident in the past tense:
'He knew the truth –> He did know the truth –> Did he know the truth?'

With est-ce que, because what is inserted was a full clause, it doesn't change the conjugation of the main verb:
« Il pense à la vérité –> C'est qu'il pense à la vérité –> Est-ce qu'il pense à la vérité ? »
« Il a pensé à la vérité –> C'est qu'il a pensé à la vérité –> Est-ce qu'il a pensé à la vérité ? »

[exotic crystal]

Thank you I think it's a simple way to ask questions in French without changing order of words in the sentence. Like adding the word ''do'' in English. Makes everything clearer