colven.

[civic tartan]

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.

[wise rain]

Qu'est-ce que is the interrogative pronoun « que (what) » plus the interrogative marker « est-ce que »

Qu'est-ce que tu veux ?
What do you want?

Est-ce que tu veux des jouets ?
Do you want some toys?

As you can see, « que » takes the place of an object there

[dull plume]

ahhh yess now i get it!
thank youu!!

i was always confused i think now i get it 🙂

[wise rain]

« Est-ce que » is an interrogative that you can put with any interrogative word in place of inversion

Que fais-tu ? can be reworded as Qu'est-ce que tu fais ? [Que + est-ce que]

Où vas-tu ? can be reworded as Où est-ce que tu vas ?
Pourquoi vient-il à la fête ? can be reworded as Pourquoi est-ce qu'il vient à la fête ?

etc etc

[dull plume]

hoo okayy

[wise rain]

You can use « Est-ce que » alone to replace inversion though in that case it's going to turn into a Yes/No question

Vas-tu venir à la fête ? => Est-ce que tu vas venir à la fête ?

but not:
Préfères-tu le café ou le thé ? ≠ Est-ce que tu préfères le café ou le thé ?

[dull plume]

both of them translates the same?

[wise rain]

Yes

You can read more here:
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/questions/

[dull plume]

its only the Est-ce que one is more close ended question with just yes/no

[wise rain]

Yes, you have to reword it

« Est-ce que tu préfères le thé au café ? »
'Do you prefer tea to coffee?'

For the questions bit, here's a TL;DR:
You have three ways of asking a question.
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 ? »

Because intonation is oral and inversion have a few exceptions, we tend to emphasise the second method of « est-ce que » when teaching questions because it's neutral and doesn't require much faffing about