invicta5

[deft cairn]

Please be patient

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

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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.

[fiery patrol]

The former uses no syntaxic change, it's the most informal
The latter uses inversion, it's very formal in French

The neutral way would be with est-ce que

Pourquoi est-ce que tu...

@regal shuttle

[regal shuttle]

Thank you @fiery patrol 🌹

[unique ivy]

I could be wrong but both of these read to me like "why aren't you trying to relax" and not "why don't you try to relax" (which is almost always a suggestion, not a question)

I usually see the imperative used in this kind of situation in French but I'm not sure I've ever seen it in a formal context

what comes to mind are "et si on essayait de se détendre" or "essaie de te détendre" or "détends-toi"

i think "et si tu/on..." is a pretty good approximation of "why don't you..."

but im not sure

[fiery locust]

You’re right

[fiery patrol]

Same thing in french so idk XD

[fiery patrol]

Fax tho

[unique ivy]

I guess in english "why don't you" is an idiomatic way of making an indirect suggestion: "why don't you take a seat over there" isn't posing a question, it's telling you 'nicely' to go sit down. meanwhile "why aren't you sitting down over there" is an actual question.

Like:

them: "Why don't you go sit down over there?"
me: "ok"
me: doesn't sit down
them: "why aren't you sitting down...?"

I hadn't actually realized this before seeing this question lol

[fiery locust]

Why don't you go sit down over there?

How about you go sit down over there?

[fiery patrol]

Yeah we definitely don't say pourquoi tu t'asseois pas

That'd be why aren't you sitting down

I think the imperative is fine

With s'asseoir it's not rude