Timeline for Is "De qui parles-tu" (for example) as formal as its English equivalent, or is it normal for the French to casually say that ?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
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| Jul 11, 2019 at 10:00 | history | edited | Stéphane Gimenez |
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| Jul 11, 2019 at 8:02 | comment | added | user20927 | A teacher may well start by telling you it is, to try to get across the basic idea, but that is how language teaching works - you start with something that may not be totally accurate but can be easily understood, then you refine it. Here you have a native speaker helping you refine it, and you won't listen... | |
| Jul 11, 2019 at 8:02 | comment | added | user20927 | @PeterPaff you are conflating two separate issues. The ten commandments are expressed using tu, for example, but are by no means informal. While it is true that situations where the relationship between the speakers calls for vous tend to be formal situations, that is only a correlation (as jiliagre has said), and tu is not in itself informal... | |
| Jul 10, 2019 at 23:12 | answer | added | jlliagre | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jul 10, 2019 at 21:23 | history | edited | jlliagre | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 10, 2019 at 18:39 | answer | added | Phyzz | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 10, 2019 at 12:01 | comment | added | Based | @jlliagre the accepted answer suggests otherwise, unless you regard something to say to a close friend as formal. | |
| Jul 10, 2019 at 11:00 | comment | added | jlliagre | @PeterPaff I don't think you'll change your mind but in my opinion, you are confusing correlation and causation. The inversion is definitely formal in French, the tutoiement is merely dictated by the relationship between the persons. It is much more often found in casual conversation than formal ones but isn't informal per se. | |
| Jul 10, 2019 at 6:46 | comment | added | Based | @jlliagre I may have missed it, but you are talking about tutoyer in formal form (not courant), which I've been taught is not done. The verb-pronoun structure in the OP is not formal as long as "tu" is the pronoun used. | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 17:14 | comment | added | jlliagre | @PeterPaff You missed necessarily in my comment.The OP sentence uses a formal form, regardless of its tutoiement usage. Pierre, c'est quand que vous partez ? = registre familier à une personne qu'on vouvoie, mais Pierre, quand partiras-tu ? = registre soutenu à une personne qu'on tutoie. | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 12:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackFrench/status/1148562519809769473 | ||
| Jul 9, 2019 at 11:36 | comment | added | Based | @jlliagre "tu" is familier or courant at best, never soutenu. Formal would obviously be "De qui parlez-vous?". | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 11:25 | answer | added | Daniel | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 11:14 | comment | added | jlliagre | @PeterPaff Using tu is not necessarily informal and de qui parles-tu ? is definitely formal. | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 9:41 | comment | added | Based | Since you use 'tu' pronoun, it is not formal. Formal language uses 'vous' pronoun and conjugation. (google: tutoyer) | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 8:12 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jul 9, 2019 at 6:58 | comment | added | user20904 | A basic rule to make it less formal is simply to put the pronom (je tu il / elle etc) before the verb. Then De qui parles-tu ? becomes De qui tu parles ?, As-tu fait ça ? becomes Tu as fait ça ? (more oral, the intonation counts a lot). You can also replace Qu'as-tu by Qu'est-ce que tu. | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 0:33 | vote | accept | Peter Henry | ||
| Jul 9, 2019 at 0:28 | answer | added | LPH | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 0:27 | answer | added | OddBrew | timeline score: 22 | |
| Jul 9, 2019 at 0:00 | review | First posts | |||
| Jul 9, 2019 at 5:38 | |||||
| Jul 8, 2019 at 23:57 | history | asked | Peter Henry | CC BY-SA 4.0 |