1. Rising Intonation
Using intonation is probably the easiest way to ask a question in French. The voice simply rises at the end of a sentence, turning it into a question. Consider the following in English:
You have children.
You have children?
A simple change in your voice turns a statement into a question.
Vous avez des enfants? (You have children?)
Tu aimes ton travail? (You like your work?)
Tu as déjà voyagé? (You’ve travelled?)
2. Est-ce Que
Le French structure “est-ce que” is equivalent to “is it that” in English. So, a question like “Est-ce que tu as un chien?” would translate literally to: “Is it that you have a dog?”.
Yes, it might sound a bit strange when you’re thinking in English. But, French people don’t think in English, of course; they think in French! Est-ce que is an extremely common structure for yes-no questions, and you can expect to hear it often in conversation.
Est-ce que vous avez des enfants? (Do you have children?)
Est-ce que tu aimes ton travail? (Do you like your work?)
Est-ce que tu as déjà voyagé? (Have you ever travelled?)
3. Inversion
Inversion is probably the trickiest of the three structures for English-speakers, but with a little bit of practice, it will soon be second nature.
An inversion is basically moving the personal pronoun after the verb and connecting the two with a hyphen.
Personal pronoun? I have no idea what she’s talking about...
For those of you who – like me – never actually learned English grammar, a personal pronoun is simply one of: I, you, he, she, we, they.
So in this case, a statement like “Tu aimes danser” (you like to dance) could be turned into a question by placing tu after the verb and adding a hyphen:
Aimes-tu danser? (Do you like to dance?)
Let’s try that with our original three questions:
Avez-vous des enfants? (Do you have children?)
Aimes-tu ton travail? (Do you like your work?)
As-tu déjà voyagé? (Have you ever travelled?)
