#mr.moderino

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solid schoonerBOT
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Please be patient

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latent wren
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For the first question, 'some' here is the partitive article which is not just « de », but « du/de la/des » or « de + le/la/les ». The point is that it is the way to form the partitive, that's it: the preposition « de » plus the definite articles. The reason why requires a lengthy explanation on historical grammar.

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For the second question, that's just how French asks its questions. You have three ways of doing so. Let's use these two sentences for example:
(a) « La professeure arrive »
(b) « Vous ne l'avez pas dit + pourquoi »

(1) Inversion – the formal way
Here, you take the subject and put it after the conjugated verb. The caveat is that the subject has to be in pronoun form – if it's not, you have to repeat it in pronoun form – and that in the third person singular, if the verb ends in a vowel, a T sound is added between the verb and the subject.
(a) « La professeure arrive-t-elle ? »
Here, the subject is NOT a pronoun, but a noun (la professeure), so we repeat it in pronoun form (elle) before inverting it. Since the conjugation ends in a vowel and the subject starts with a vowel, a T sound is added to stop a hiatus, a gap between the two vowels.
(b) « Pourquoi ne l'avez-vous pas dit ? »
Here, the subject is already in pronoun form (vous) so no repetition and it's not the third person singular so no T sound. Notice that everything else is kept the same; the thing that changes is that the subject is placed in front of the verb.

(2) Est-ce que – the neutral way
Here, you simply add « est-ce que » before the subject and you're good to go.
(a) « Est-ce que la professeure arrive ? »
(b) « Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne l'avez pas dit ? »

(3) Intonation – the informal way
You keep the order but you just add a rising tone at the end to mark the question.
(a) « La professeure arrive ? »
(b) « Pourquoi vous ne l'avez pas dit ? »

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Take a look at your sentence, « tu as regardé ». The order is kept (i.e. no inversion) but there is no « est-ce que » so it's intonation, the informal way of asking a question.

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As to your question as to 'did', I'll have to explain do-support. Before I do, I would like say that French and English both ask their questions using inversion: the act of putting the subject after the conjugated verb.

For English, it used to be the case that we can do inversion with any verb. This is most evident in early works from before the 18th and 19th centuries like the King James Bible (1611). Job 38:33 gives us this:

33 Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
That is inversion: We take the subject (thou) and put it after the verb (knowest). This is how English asked and how it still asks questions to this day. With me so far? Okay, somewhere along the road, we've lost the ability to do that and we can only now do inversion with modal verbs like 'to do', 'to be', 'to have', 'can', 'may', etcetera. That's still evident in compound tenses like the present perfect:
You have known the truth for some time -> Have you known the truth for some time?
However, English still needs to ask questions, and so it innovates with do-support. The idea of do-support is that you put a helper verb, 'to do' and then all you need to do is invert that.
Let's take that earlier sentence and put that in the simple past: 'You knew the truth for some time'.
We put the verb 'to do' which then takes the responsibility of conjugation since it's now the closest verb: 'You did know the truth for some time'.
We then just invert that: 'Did you know the truth for some time?'
You knew the truth for some time
–> You + to do + knew the truth for some time
––> You did know the truth for some time
–––> Did you know the truth for some time?
That's why, if we looked at the modern translation of Job 38:33 in the New King James Bible (1982), it uses do-support:
33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

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What about French? Well, French can still do inversion with any verb. Let's take the two sentences from earlier and turn them into French. I'll turn the second example – the simple past one – into the present since that's not a compound tense.

Tu as connu la vérité depuis un certain temps
Tu connais la vérité depuis un certain temps
We can just invert that:
As-tu connu la vérité depuis un certain temps ?
Connais-tu la vérité depuis un certain temps ?
Sounds good so far. However, stuff gets complicated when you start going into the third person singular and nouns as subjects where you get something like this:
Adam ne le lui a pas dit –> Adam ne le lui a-t-il pas dit ?

Yuck. Because of that, French innovated with « est-ce que ». Literally, it means 'is it that' and it sounds clunky but it's not. « est-ce que » is « c'est que (it's that) » inverted which is a new clause. The way French does it is that it acts as if you've inserted a new clause and inverts that clause instead, leaving you with the original sentence without any change. Let's take the three sentences from before and put it through the motions:

Tu as connu la vérité depuis un certain temps
–> C'est que tu as connu la vérité depuis un certain temps
––> Est-ce que tu as connu la vérité depuis un certain temps ?
Tu connais la vérité depuis un certain temps
–> C'est que tu connais la vérité depuis un certain temps
––> Est-ce que tu connais la vérité depuis un certain temps ?
Adam ne le lui a pas dit
–> C'est qu'Adam ne le lui a pas dit
––> Est-ce qu'Adam ne le lui a pas dit ?

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The two messages above are me pre-empting you asking about « est-ce que » because it comes up sometimes. Take your time digesting that, it's a lot @hazy vapor

hazy vapor
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Thank you! I appreciate 👍

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Very helpful! Going back to ''tu as regarde la meteo pour demain'' Can you just say Tu regarde la meteo pour demain? I'm not sure why tu as is there, it means ''You have looked at the weather for today''? I think The as makes me think twice

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I'm starting to understand the inversion a little bit. Instead of saying ''Tu aimes le chocolat.'' Which means You like chocolate, you can say ''Aimes-Tu le Chocolat'' which literally means Like you the chocolat but understood as Do you like the chocolat

latent wren
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Tu as regardé la météo pour demain ?
You’ve looked at the weather (prediction) for tomorrow?

Tu regardes la météo pour demain ?
You’re looking at the weather (prediction) for tomorrow?

latent wren
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the pronoun isn't capitalised

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but yeah

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It should be noted that inversion carries an air of formality that regular do-support doesn't

hazy vapor
latent wren
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It’s the tense

hazy vapor
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Ahhh

latent wren
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Présent: Tu regardes
Passé composé : Tu as regardé

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To be fair, I should’ve translated the passé composé bit as :
‘You’ve looked at the weather (prediction) for tomorrow?’

hazy vapor
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Ahhhh

latent wren
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I’ll edit that now

hazy vapor
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I'm guessing you're raising your voice when you say You've looked at the weather for tomorrow

latent wren
hazy vapor
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Ok that makes more sense, Tu as regarde la meteo pour demain= You have checked the weather for tomorrow? (With a voice inotination increase)

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I'm throwing a curve ball here. Is it possible to say as tu regarde la meteo pour demain?

latent wren
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Yup

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As-tu regardé la météo pour demain ?
Have you looked at the weather (prediction) for tomorrow?

hazy vapor
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Holy! Thats a game changer. So thats the inversion and when the Youtuber said ''Tu as regarde la meteo pour demain'' she meant You have checked/looked the weather for tomorrow with a voice increase (inotation) at the end?

latent wren
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Yeah

hazy vapor
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thank you french helpers i will be back much appreciated

latent wren
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just use est-ce que

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so much simpler