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How to form inverted questions in French
Simple Yes/No Questions
The inverted forms of je peux, je vais, je suis, j'ai are as follow:
Note that these forms are rarely used nowadays, as they're considered quite formal and old-fashioned. French people will use est-ce que or "statement order" questions instead.
Case of puis-je
In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected. There is no real English equivalent, but the polite May I...? comes closest.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected. There is no real English equivalent, but the polite May I...? comes closest.
More Complex Questions
You can also use all of the question words (Comment, Quand,...) at the beginning with puis-je, ai-je and suis-je:
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