Interrogative adverbs - using question words in French

• The most useful interrogative adjectives (question words) in French are qui (who), que/qu’est-ce que/quoi (what), quand (when), où (where), pourquoi (why), comment (how) and combien (how much/many).

• Questions can be formed in three different ways in French:

  • Use normal sentence word order and put the question word at the end.

  • Put the question word first, followed by est-ce que with normal sentence word order.

  • Put the question word first, followed by the verb, a hyphen and then the subject of the sentence.

• Qui can be the subject of a question and doesn’t always need another pronoun.

The most useful question words in French are:

There are three ways of forming questions with question words in French:

• Use normal sentence word order and put the question word at the end. In spoken French, your voice should go up at the end to signify that you are asking a question. For example:

Tu habites où ? – Where do you live?

• Put the question word first, followed by est-ce que with normal sentence word order. For example:

Où est-ce que tu habites ? – Where do you live?

• Put the question word first, followed by the verb, a hyphen and then the subject of the sentence. For example:

Où habites-tu ? – Where do you live?

Did you know?

Unlike in English, a space must always be included before a question mark in written French.

When qui (who) is the subject of the question, another pronoun is not needed, and the word order is the same as a statement. For example:

• Qui a gagné le jeu ? – Who won the game?

It is also possible to use qui after a preposition:

• Tu vas aller avec qui ? – Who are you going to go with?

Que (what) can also be said as qu’est-ce que or quoi, using the following word order:

• Que vas-tu faire demain ? – What are you going to do tomorrow?

• Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire demain ? – What are you going to do tomorrow?

• Tu vas faire quoi demain ? – What are you going to do tomorrow?

Practise what you've learned about interrogative adverbs with this quiz.

Now you’ve learned about interrogative adverbs in French, why not explore partitive articles?