isvash

[jovial pier]

Please be patient

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

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[stiff summit]

no

étudies-tu uses inversion, the formal way to ask questions

[ornate epoch]

1. "Tu étudies" affirmative sentence
2. "Etudies-tu" interrogative sentence.

Sometime you can use 1) as a question : "tu étudies ?" Has to be pronouced with a different intonation

[alpine siren]

Okay gotcha!

So, "Tu étudies Français" would be me telling someone they are studying French

whereas "étudies-tu Français" would be the interrogative asking them if they do.

[ornate epoch]

"Tu étudies le Français"
"Etudies-tu le Français ?"

Ne pas oublier "le".

[alpine siren]

Merci beaucoup!

[umbral path]

also, "Tu étudies le français" can be a question if you use a question mark/upward intonation.

ie. "Tu étudies le français ?"

There are 3 ways to make a question in french and that's the most casual way. In order of most casual to most formal:

Tu étudies le français ?
Est-ce que tu étudies le français ?
Étudies-tu le français?

[alpine siren]

I know this is meandering off the original question, but when talking about formality, wouldn't Étudiez-vous be an even more formal way?

[umbral path]

yes

[alpine siren]

Would you use étudiez-tu normally or is that awkward due to the mixing of formality?

(excuse my typos if i miss them, getting used to two different keyboards and autocorrect)

[umbral path]

mixing tu and vous forms is an error

that is to say, it's not just awkward, it's incorrect

[alpine siren]

Thank you! You learn so much more actually speaking to people/asking questions than Duo or other platforms

[umbral path]

its like if i said "he were big"

[umbral path]

no problem

don't hesitate to ask if you have any other questions

[alpine siren]

I've been avoiding est-ce que as it just looks scary with the extra length, going to try to start incorporating it

[umbral path]

i understand, sometimes people in quebec shorten that kind of stuff like qu'est-ce que turns into keske

in super casual text communication

[alpine siren]

Yeah, I've heard that before, never seen it spelt out like that though, makes sense though.

I'm only on week two of trying to learn French after recovering from high school failing me a decade ago.

(Awful gr. 9 teacher made me drop the language)

[umbral path]

i also had a decade long gap between high school french and learning with self-study

you got this

[alpine siren]

Merci! 🙂

[umbral path]

de rien