To invert, or not to invert, that is the question.
Did you learn that questions using the inversion automatically sound more formal in French? This isn’t always the case in the French of Québec. In fact, you’ll hear the inversion used quite often when questions are asked in everyday conversations.
The questions below all sound perfectly conversational despite the fact that they use the inversion:
Veux-tu un lift? from entry #707
Do you want a lift?
Pourrais-tu me donner dix piasses, s’il te plaît? from entry #382
Can you give me ten bucks, please?
En veux-tu? from entry #382
Do you want some?
As-tu mal à la tête? from entry #382
Do you have a headache?
Me l’apporterais-tu, s’il te plaît? from entry #382
Can you bring it to me, please?
Sais-tu comment ça s’est passé? from entry #318
Do you know how it happened?
However!
Using the inversion with question words (comment?, pourquoi?, quand?, où?, etc.) does sound more formal in French, even in Québec. In regular conversations, the inversion is typically avoided in these kinds of questions.
None of the conversational questions below use the inversion:
Comment t’as su? from entry #712
(as opposed to comment as-tu su?)
How did you know?
How did you find out?
Pourquoi vous me dites ça? from entry #318
(as opposed to pourquoi me dites-vous cela?)
Why are you telling me this?
Why are you saying this to me?
C’est arrivé quand? from entry #318
(as opposed to quand est-ce arrivé?)
When did it happen?
Il restait où? from entry #318
(as opposed to où restait-il?)
Where was he living?
You’ll also sometimes hear question words get thrown to the end of a question, like in the last two examples above.
WOW… Since I recently listened to one of my old Champs-Elysees French CASSETTES from the 90s where the defenders of the French language were discussing the fact that French people are disrespecting the language (and therefore themselves, LOL) by not inverting, this is very interesting to me. The defenders of the French language were up in arms over French people (no discussion of Quebecois) using phrases like “Tu pars quand?” I was recently helping a young woman taking French 1 at the same I listened to the tape, and I noticed that her teacher (San Diego region) did not use the “proper” inversions on her French grammar test! (although she is quite a stickler everywhere else on those tests).
All the #318 Quebecois examples sound more natural to me than the inverted examples.
In the end, the people who maintain arguments like the one you mentioned never get their way anyway…
Re: Pourquoi vous me dites ça? from entry #318
Oddly, the “vous” just doesn’t ring melodious(ly) in my ear. However…
P’quoé toume di’çâ? (recalling the “proper Québec” pronunciation of â) is more natural. Non?
With tu, it becomes: pourquoi tu me dis ça?
It sounds like: pourquoi tsume dzi çâ.
Vous sounds natural in the example too.
It sounds like: pourquoi voume dzite çâ.
If you’re speaking to more than one person, you’re obligated to use vous. But it sounds natural as the polite singular form too.
In Montréal, you’ll definitely want to pronounce pourquoi as pourquoi. 😉