"What" questions and "que"

Anne D.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

"What" questions and "que"

ATTENTION:
What can only be at the end of the sentence, and you use quoi and NOT que.


I spent a while trying to understand this sentence, as there are several examples given later on with "que" or "qu’" at the beginning, eg qu’est-ce ?", "que veut-il ?"and indeed those starting "qu’est-ce que". I reckoned it only applies to your first group of sentences where intonation, rather than inversion is used to ask the question - is that right?

Asked 2 years ago
Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

Quoi  is used at the end of a sentence, just as you say. But in an inverted questions, where the interrogation pronoun is at the beginning, you use que and not quoi.

CélineNative French expert teacher in Kwiziq

Bonjour Anne,

Chris is correct! If you take another look at the lesson you will see that this is mentioned towards the end: "ATTENTION: in the inverted form, quoi becomes que or qu' "

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

Anne D. asked:

"What" questions and "que"

ATTENTION:
What can only be at the end of the sentence, and you use quoi and NOT que.


I spent a while trying to understand this sentence, as there are several examples given later on with "que" or "qu’" at the beginning, eg qu’est-ce ?", "que veut-il ?"and indeed those starting "qu’est-ce que". I reckoned it only applies to your first group of sentences where intonation, rather than inversion is used to ask the question - is that right?

Sign in to submit your answer

Don't have an account yet? Join today

Ask a question

Find your French level for FREE

Test your French to the CEFR standard

Find your French level
Clever stuff happening!