Chapter 24
lets get you confidant on asking questions like :
“What does our supplier do when he’s late on deliveries?”
“a delivery”: « une livraison »
« Que fait notre fournisseur lorsqu’il est en retard sur les livraisons ?»
“a supplier”: « un fournisseur »
“to supply”: « fournir »
“late” is « en retard ».
“on deliveries”: « sur les livraisons »
Quick tip: Inversion in a question
Notice that I didn’t use « Qu’est-ce que ? » to form my question, but rather an inversion to make it more formal. So instead of saying « Qu’est-ce que notre fournisseur fait ? », I said « Que fait notre fournisseur ? ».
Grammar point: What
“what”, the first word. “what” is usually « ce que » in a statement not in a question.
In a question it will be « quel ».
Let’s explain the basics of relative pronouns: “which”, “what”, “who” and how they are translated. Basically there is no equivalence between English and French. The English makes a distinction between a person and an item. So you will use “which” for an item, “who” for a person, and “what” for both. But in French it’s not a person/item distinction, it’s a subject/object distinction. If the person or the item is the subject, is doing the action, you will use a relative pronoun. If it’s the object, if it’s receiving the action, you will use another.
For example, « qui » is the subject (active) relative pronoun.
« que » or « ce que » is the object (passive) relative pronoun.
e.g. If I say “Simon is the person who is filming the scene”, I will say « Simon est la personne qui film la scène ». So I’m using “who” in English because Simon is a person, and I’m using « qui » in French, not because Simon is a person, but because Simon is doing the action of filming the scene. And if I reverse it, “The scene is what/that/which is being filmed by Simon”, the French will be « La scène est ce que Simone filme ». I’m using « ce que » because the scene is receiving the action of being filmed by Simon.
Here is the full sentence again:
“What does our supplier do when he’s late on deliveries?”
« Que fait notre fournisseur lorsqu’il est en retard sur les livraisons ? »
