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Ça avance-tu mon enquête? Using TU to ask yes-no questions in French (#1028)

1 October 2015 by OffQc

In a television show called Mensonges, a character who plays an investigator said to another character:

Pis? Ça avance-tu mon enquête?

In this question, we’ve got an example of tu being used to ask a yes-no question.

pis?
so? well? and?

ça avance
it’s advancing, moving forward

ça avance-tu?
is it advancing?, moving forward?

mon enquête
my investigation

Remember, the tu in this question can be understood as meaning yes or no? (and not you). It’s used to ask yes-no questions in an informal way in spoken French. Ça avance-[oui ou non], mon enquête?

Pis is a contraction of puis. It sounds as if it were written pi.

Pis? Ça avance-tu mon enquête?
So? Is my investigation moving forward?
So? Is my investigation going well?

This yes-no tu is placed after the conjugated verb.

Tu veux-tu?
Do you want to?

Ça se peut-tu?
Is that possible?

In tenses like the past tense, where there’s an auxiliary and a past participle, tu is placed after the auxiliary.

J’ai-tu dit ça?
Did I say that?

Tu is used to ask yes-no questions. You can’t use it with quand, pourquoi, qui, etc. For example, you can’t ask pourquoi tu fais-tu ça? because that’s not a yes-no question. You’d ask pourquoi tu fais ça? instead.

Can you turn these into yes-no questions with tu?

1. T’aimes ça.
2. On a besoin de ça.
3. T’as peur.

Answers
1. T’aimes-tu ça?
2. On a-tu besoin de ça?
3. T’as-tu peur?

There are many more examples of yes-no questions using tu in the downloadable OffQc books.

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Posted in Entries #1001-1050 | Tagged ça avance-tu?, français québécois, Mensonges, pis, Québécois French, tu, yes-no question | 3 Comments

3 Responses

  1. on 1 October 2015 at 12:22 armand

    hi felix. i was listening to 98.5 yesterday.the topic was on the so called decline of the quality of/standard\ Quebec french, that youngsters can neither write nor even speak properly, and that there should be more linguistic influence from big brother across the Atlantic.they are entitled to their opinions.what bothered me is that,the host ISABELLE,in my opinion anyway scoffed at informal usage and laughed when her guests brought up Joual.any ideas as why many people want to pretend that this language style doesn’t exist? this style is still thriving allover QUEBEC and ONT. as well.my dad taught me jOUAL
    from infancy, before i knew the standard style even existed.and even he called it the /bastard\ version at times.i think it’s a shame there has to be a division between peoples/classes\ and language styles and that anyone who ridicules this style is only shortchanging themselves.IT”S ALL GOOD.


    • on 1 October 2015 at 22:27 OffQc

      Older speakers often say younger people speak poorly, and not just in French. I’m sure the older speakers who criticise today were criticised by older speakers in their younger days. A lot of people see language change as language decline, without seeing the larger picture.

      A person who can’t speak his language at different levels (formal, informal, etc.) is at a disadvantage. Imagine speaking formal French in the locker room (you’d be laughed at), or informal French while reporting the news (you’d seem crude). Each level of language serves a purpose for its speakers. A speaker who can’t alter how he speaks depending on whom he’s with is disadvantaged.


    • on 15 October 2015 at 23:04 Neil

      People have been complaining about language decline for many hundreds of years and probably thousands. The languages (all of them) are still perfectly good. If a language is not changing, it will die.



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