I think Comment tu t'appelles is also more of a "langage familiale", where you can use just intonation to ask questions. It's already a long question, making it even longer with a est-ce que would be boring

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Monika wrote:Can someone explain me when to form questions "question word est-ce que subject verb?" and when to use the short "question word verb-subject?"
E.g. Why is it: Qu'est-ce que c'est?
But: Qui est-ce?
Somewhat different: Why is it Comment tu t'appelles? and not Comment est-ce que tu t'appelles?
Maralais wrote:langage familiale
Cathode Ray Sunshine wrote:Guys, I need something explained to me. When to use Qui and when to use Que. The way a friend told me, is that Qui is used when the action falls on the same subject, as opposed to Que which is for indirect subject? I need it explained with details please.
Cathode Ray Sunshine wrote:Regarding my de vs du question from a while back. Why is it that countries like Chad and Burundi are République du Burundi and République du Tchad respectively and not de Burundi and de Tchad? and why is Côte-d'Ivoire called République de Côte-d'Ivoire and not du Côte-d'Ivoire? I remember someone a while back saying that for instance, if you said de Quebec, it means Quebec city, while du Quebec means Quebec province, so du is use for a wider geographical space, so I wonder why it's not the same for all.
I was reading an article yesterday in French and I noticed that when they mention countries, they always include the article, as opposed to just mentioning the country's name, which gives me a bit more insight as to other mistakes I was making.
Grop wrote:[...]
(As a side note, the form one should use has little to do with politeness - you can ask a stranger first form questions, even though you call them "vous". A few days ago I asked someone who had witnessed an accident Vous pourriez me donner votre nom ?).
[snip]
Re: Why is it Comment tu t'appelles ? and not Comment est-ce que tu t'appelles ?
I think Comment tu t'appelles ? is natural, and I would feel no need to use a longer form in most contexts. Saying Comment est-ce que tu t'appelles ? is possible but very unlikely.
[snip]
So, the country of Tchad being called le Tchad, it's only natural to say République du Tchad. I don't know why we say République de Côte-d'Ivoire instead ofRépublique de la Côte-d'Ivoire, but it seems to be all about the article used when referring to the country.
Grop wrote:Tu veux dire des langues apparentées. Mais comme a remarqué Monika, il pourrait typiquement se tromper dans ce genre de cas, quand un verbe est transitif direct dans une langue et demande une préposition dans une autre.
DaFranker wrote:As for the third bit, I believe the reason we say République de Côte-d'Ivoire instead of République de la Côte-d'Ivoire is because here the "la" would also be inferred to put emphasis on identity and quantity of "Côte-d'Ivoire"s as items (i.e. it would make "Côte-d'Ivoire" sound like an improper noun), where this phrase would refer to [a/the] Republic within the item or "of the" item. I would certainly translate it to one of those two if it ever actually occurred in a French text that I had to translate into English, assuming I could confirm that it wasn't simply a mistake on the part of the author.
Grop wrote:Sinon aujourd'hui c'était le premier tour des élections présidentielles en France. Je suis assez déçu par le résultat, même s'il était plutôt prévisible.
The 'Thunderbirds' in question is a 1960s British TV series.Grop wrote:You could also say:
Ils portent le nom d'un oiseau mythique d'Amérique du Sud ~ ou peut-être du Nord.
Monika wrote:"arrêter la musique"
Would you understand that the music (tape/CD/sound file) was paused or that it was turned off completely?
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