rojushka

[jovial shadow]

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.

[quartz vigil]

I have some excersices on these topics too

[narrow wagon]

hi rojus
about formal vs informal first

• as you may realize, vocabulary is a big part of it. Some words are more common or avoided when speaking formally. No real trick here, you kinda need to know how words are used.
• a second part is shortenings. Things like dropping "ne" are basically always happening in informal French, while "ne" tends to remain in formal French. Optional liaisons also tend to get dropped in informal French but used in formal French
• the way to ask questions also changes, as you've mentioned. More on that in a minute.

what do you know about asking questions in French?

also, if you'd like me to elaborate on one of the previous points, feel free to ask

[quartz vigil]

well for the standard ive been using it has always been something along the lines of " Ou est la toilete?" where the adverb goes first and then we have the verb + noun

our teacher told us that to transform it to soutenu we generally have to drop the adverb and swith the noun and verb places

So for example If I had a sentence: Est-ce que vous voulez savoir comment agir parfaitement dans toutes les situations?

Id change it to Voulez-vous savoir comment .....

But I'm having difficulty with sentences tha need to use grammar like a-t-elle/il or the adverb Est-ce que or Qu'est-ce qu

[narrow wagon]

French has three ways of asking question

• intonation => same word order as stating a fact except that your intonation conveys it's a question (informal)
  ex: tu veux quoi ? (what do you want?)
• est-ce que => using the "est-ce que" construction clears up the fact it's a question and is not as informal while not being the overly formal inversion
  ex: qu'est-ce que tu veux ? (what do you want?)
• inversion => there are rules to inversion, but the main one is inverting verb and pronoun order alongside linking them with a dash, it's very formal
  ex: que veux-tu ? (what do you want?)

[quartz vigil]

i see

[narrow wagon]

the one to use for formal questions is inversion
that's the one you're using (correctly) with your "voulez-vous savoir" sentence

inversion does not use "est-ce que", it's a different construction
(technically, "est-ce que" is inversion, but in practice it's more a fixed construction to add to a question, and does not carry the same formality)

[quartz vigil]

Alright

I have spme examples I want to share

[narrow wagon]

there are a couple things to note regarding inversion, but we'll go through them using your examples

[quartz vigil]

1. Votre familiarite vous a deja gene ou cause des problemes?

my version: votre familiarite vous-il a deja gene ou cause de problemes?

[narrow wagon]

so we need to invert the subject and verb.
first, can you locate them in the original sentence?

[quartz vigil]

the verb is vous?

no

wait

[narrow wagon]

"vous" is not a verb
it means you in "Has your familiarity ever bothered you?"

[quartz vigil]

so the verb would be a?

and then the noun is vous because it refers to 'you'??

[narrow wagon]

right.
to be exact, "a gêné" and "a causé" are the complete verbs, but the inversion is done with the conjugated verb, which is "a" here, a form of "avoir". (this sentence uses passé composé, which uses a helper verb)

the subject is not "vous"

[quartz vigil]

so basically the active noun is "not present"?

[narrow wagon]

we're looking for the subject, the one doing the action of gêner/causer, the one doing the action of bothering and causing issues

[quartz vigil]

so that would be votre familiarite?

[narrow wagon]

exactly

BUT

inversion can only be done using pronouns, not nouns.
nouns are normal words describing stuff or people
pronouns are words like il/elle/on, very generic and referring to something else

[quartz vigil]

so we have to add one?

[narrow wagon]

exactly

in cases where the subject is a noun, you have to add a pronoun matching the subject to use inversion with

[quartz vigil]

so it would be votre familiarite vous a-t-elle ....

[narrow wagon]

what would be the pronoun matching the subject "votre familiarité"?

[quartz vigil]

or il

[narrow wagon]

oh you did it already?

[quartz vigil]

yeah i think ive remembered now

[narrow wagon]

let's break it down just to be sure

[quartz vigil]

alright

[narrow wagon]

"votre familiarité" is a feminine noun, so it could be replaced by "elle" as a pronoun
we're going to use that pronoun for inversion

[quartz vigil]

Yes

[narrow wagon]

take your verb, add the pronoun after that, and a dash inbetween
it would typically make "a-elle"

[quartz vigil]

yeah but i remember how our teacher told us that you cant do that

so you add a t in the middle

[narrow wagon]

but if the verb is ending with a vowel, and the pronoun is starting with a vowel (so il/elle/on) you have to add a -t- inbetween

"votre familiarité vous a-t-elle déjà gêné...?" is the correct sentence

[quartz vigil]

yeah i got this one

[narrow wagon]

is there another example you'd like to go through?

[quartz vigil]

yes please

Qu'est-ce qu'on peut obtenir danls la vie grace a la politesse?

so like you said

the est-ce que is removed

and we have to inverse the subject and verb

[narrow wagon]

doing great so far

[quartz vigil]

so: Que peut-on obtenir dans la vie grace a la politesse?

[narrow wagon]

nailed it

[quartz vigil]

thank you!

I have one two more topics i want to go through

[narrow wagon]

sure

[quartz vigil]

I don't know when to use que or de in sentences

Like for example: je suis ravie que/de il n'y ait plus de caisse..

well this ones obvious

[narrow wagon]

is it?

[quartz vigil]

From what i understand it should be que because we dont have an infinitive form

[narrow wagon]

it should be "que" indeed

[quartz vigil]

well qu' in this case

because we have a vowel

[narrow wagon]

here, que is what's called a relative pronoun
it introduces a new clause, a subsentence basically.
I'm glad that [there is no more box]
Je suis ravie qu' [il n'y ait plus de caisse]

The part in bracket is basically an autonomous idea described by a full sentence, with a subject and a verb. "que" is introducing that clause

in English, "that" would be optional. "que" is not optional in French.

[quartz vigil]

Ohh i see

I was not really looking into the meaning of the sentence before and just looked at the verbs form

[narrow wagon]

yes, the choice of "que" is because you're describing something using a sentence

j'ai peur de partir => I'm afraid to leave
j'ai peur qu'il parte => I'm afraid (that) [he leaves]

[quartz vigil]

Yeah i get what you mean especially after the comparison to english

I think ive got this topic completely

My last one would be The subjunctive i think

[narrow wagon]

subjunctive is a tricky one, and you may have realized it's been used in the two examples above

first of, you do not know any other romance language by chance? (spanish, portuguese, italian)

[quartz vigil]

unfortunately, no

I speak lithuanian as my main language so its quite different grammatically in most cases

[narrow wagon]

that's not needed but as this concept also exists in those languages it's usually an easier bridge. (well technically subjunctive also exists in English but to a way lesser extent)

just before, I told you "que" was used to introduce new clauses with their own subject and verb

[quartz vigil]

yes

[narrow wagon]

subjunctive is a mood (tense) that can trigger specifically in such subordinate clauses.
It doesn't mean "que" is always followed by subjunctive, but it does mean you'll basically only see subjunctive after "que"

[quartz vigil]

Alright

is there an example of this in english?

[narrow wagon]

"God bless the king" (not "blesses")
"I demand you be quiet" (not "are")
-# as I said, it's a much rarer use case

[quartz vigil]

alright

[narrow wagon]

what triggers subjunctive specifically, though, is a bit fuzzy, and that's the whole difficulty.
subjunctive to indicate some sort of subjectivity, uncertainty, or unreality in the mind of the speaker.
in practice, specific verbs and constructions trigger the subjunctive, but it does depend on the verb and on the construction

[quartz vigil]

So basically its sort of when youre wishing/wondering about something

[narrow wagon]

in the above examples, subjunctive got triggered because of emotional impact (be glad that, be afraid that)

some use the WEIRD method:

W - wishes / desires
ex: je veux que tu viennes

E - emotions
ex: je suis content que tu viennes

I - impersonal expressions
ex: il faut que tu viennes

R - requests
ex: j'exige que tu viennes

D - doubts
ex: je ne pense pas qu'il vienne

you'll find more info there: https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/subjunctive/

[quartz vigil]

ok ill check it out

this is basically the excercise

[narrow wagon]

the most important verb to know uses subjunctive is probably falloir

[quartz vigil]

this is pretty easy since i dont need to remember the special forms of the verbs

[narrow wagon]

il faut que, il faudra que, il faudrait que etc are always followed by subjunctive

[quartz vigil]

got it

so in my example it would be: soyons, devons, proposions, sachent and aient?

[narrow wagon]

yes

you got it

[quartz vigil]

Thank you very much! I was kind of struggling to remember these topics but your advice really helped me out! I really appreciate it

[narrow wagon]

another note about subjunctive:
many times, rules are fuzzy about when to use vs not to use subjunctive
in practice, you don't need to learn all cases. Only the fundamental meaning behind it as well as the most important cases like "falloir". It's for the most part something you don't really learn and mostly get as you're exposed to more French. Messing up subjunctive will usually end up in your sentence sounding off, but understandable

[quartz vigil]

I'll keep that in mind

In any case our teacher will most probably not give us very complicated cases and only the most relevant examples

[narrow wagon]

that's good then