Pascal says: Bonjour! Questions are the engine of conversation. Without them, you can only make statements — which gets boring fast. Master these seven question words today and you can ask about anything: people, places, times, reasons, and prices. You go from monologue to dialogue!

🎯 Today's Mission

Learn the seven essential question words.
Use each one in real, natural example questions.
Learn the two ways to structure a question — formal and casual.

Document Déclencheur

Questionnaire, entretien d'embauche: Comment vous appelez-vous ? Où habitez-vous ? Pourquoi voulez-vous ce poste ? Quand pouvez-vous commencer ? Combien d'années d'expérience avez-vous ?

Qu'est-ce que tu remarques ?

Combien de mots interrogatifs différents apparaissent dans ce questionnaire ? → cinq : comment, où, pourquoi, quand, combien
"Comment vous appelez-vous ?" — pourquoi le sujet "vous" est-il placé après le verbe ? → c'est l'inversion, une structure de question plus formelle, typique d'un entretien ou d'un contexte professionnel
Comment est-ce qu'on poserait ces mêmes questions de façon plus décontractée, entre amis ? → en gardant l'ordre normal et en ajoutant juste l'intonation : "Tu t'appelles comment ?", "T'habites où ?"

Section 1: The Seven Essential Question Words

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Pascal's Tip: Knowing these seven words is like carrying a Swiss army knife. Once you have qui, quoi, où, quand, pourquoi, comment, combien, you can get information about literally anything. Questions lead to conversations, and conversations lead to friendships!

Which question word do you use to ask about a PERSON?

Which question word asks about QUANTITY or PRICE?

Section 2: Using Each Question Word

QUI — Who

Qui est-ce? [kee ess] — Who is it?
Qui parle français ici? [kee parl frahn-seh ee-see] — Who speaks French here?
Avec qui tu viens? [ah-vek kee too vyehn] — Who are you coming with?

QUE / QU'EST-CE QUE — What

Qu'est-ce que tu fais? [kess kuh too feh] — What are you doing?
Qu'est-ce que tu manges? [kess kuh too mahnj] — What are you eating?
Tu fais quoi? [too feh kwah] — What are you doing? (casual)

OÙ — Where

Où habites-tu? [oo ah-beet too] — Where do you live?
Où est la gare? [oo eh la gar] — Where is the train station?
Tu vas où? [too vah oo] — Where are you going? (casual)

QUAND — When

Quand arrives-tu? [kahn ah-reev too] — When are you arriving?
Quand est ton anniversaire? [kahn eh tohn ah-nee-vehr-sehr] — When is your birthday?
Tu pars quand? [too par kahn] — When are you leaving? (casual)

POURQUOI — Why

Pourquoi tu pleures? [poor-kwah too plœr] — Why are you crying?
Pourquoi aimes-tu le français? [poor-kwah ehm too luh frahn-seh] — Why do you like French?
Response: Parce que... [pars kuh] — Because...

COMMENT — How

Comment allez-vous? [koh-mahn ah-lay voo] — How are you? (formal)
Comment s'appelle-t-il? [koh-mahn sah-pell teel] — What's his name?
Comment on dit "apple" en français? — How do you say "apple" in French?

COMBIEN — How much / How many

Combien ça coûte? [kohn-byehn sah koot] — How much does it cost?
Combien de frères as-tu? [kohn-byehn duh frehr ah too] — How many brothers do you have?
Combien de personnes? [kohn-byehn duh pehr-son] — How many people?

Mini-dialogue:

Karim: Qu'est-ce que tu fais ce soir? (What are you doing tonight?) Alice: Je vais au cinéma. Pourquoi? (I'm going to the movies. Why?) Karim: Avec qui? (With whom?) Alice: Avec ma sœur! (With my sister!)

What does 'Où est la gare?' mean?

What is the standard response to a question with 'Pourquoi?'

Which question asks 'How many brothers do you have?'

Section 3: Two Ways to Ask Questions

Formal (inversion): Swap the subject and verb: Où habites-tu? Casual (end the sentence with the question word): Tu habites où?

Both are grammatically correct. The casual form is far more common in everyday spoken French.

More examples:

Tu manges quoi? — What are you eating? (casual)
Tu vas où? — Where are you going? (casual)
Tu pars quand? — When are you leaving? (casual)

Pascal's Tip: When you don't know the formal inversion structure, just put the question word at the END of a normal sentence and raise your voice at the end. Native speakers use this all the time — it's not lazy, it's completely natural spoken French!

Common Mistakes

❌ Quoi tu fais? → ✅ Qu'est-ce que tu fais? or Tu fais quoi? — Standalone quoi at the start of a sentence sounds unnatural; use qu'est-ce que at the start, or quoi only at the end.
❌ Pourquoi tu aimes le français (as an answer) → ✅ Use parce que to answer pourquoi, never repeat the question back.
❌ Combien tu as des frères? → ✅ Combien de frères as-tu? — Combien needs de before the noun it's counting, not "des."
❌ Mixing formal inversion with casual word order in the same phrase (Habites tu où?) → ✅ Pick one style: either Où habites-tu? (formal) or Tu habites où? (casual).

Which is the CASUAL way to ask 'Where do you live?'

Complete correctly: 'Combien ___ frères as-tu?'

Lesson Summary

Pascal: Fantastique! You can now ask about people, things, places, times, reasons, manner, and quantity.

The seven question words: qui, quoi/qu'est-ce que, où, quand, pourquoi, comment, combien.
Formal questions use inversion (Où habites-tu?); casual questions put the word at the end (Tu habites où?).
Always answer pourquoi with parce que.

Recap

Learn all seven question words and what each is used for.
Casual questions (word + normal sentence order) are extremely common in spoken French.
Combien is always followed by de before the noun being counted.
Practice asking real questions out loud every day — it's the fastest way to make them automatic.

✨ Coming Up Next...

Pascal: Now that you can ask questions, let's use them to talk about something fun — your hobbies and free time! Tomorrow you'll learn how to say what you love doing with j'aime and je préfère. À demain!