Are these negativ forms correct and common?
Tu ne t'es pas levé à 5 heures?
Laurent ne s'est-il pas couché à onze heures ?
Paul ne se brosse-t-il pas les dents?
Thank you!
There are two ways to form inverted questions with a reflexive verb in Passé composé, depending on whether the subject is a pronoun (je/tu/il/elle/on/nous/vous/ils/elles) or a noun (Marie, la fille, etc).
1- The subject is a pronoun
See also Forming inverted questions with subject pronouns in Le Passé Composé (conversational past)
In this case, the order will be as follows:
(question word) + reflexive pronoun (me/te/se/nous/vous) + auxiliary être + hyphen + je/tu/il/elle/on/nous/vous/ils/elles + past participle
Tu t'es levé à cinq heures. -> T'es-tu levé à cinq heures ?
You got up at 5. -> Did you get up at 5?
Here are more examples:
2- The subject is a noun
See also Forming inverted questions with nouns in Le Passé Composé (conversational past)
In this case, the order will be as follows:
(question word) + noun + reflexive pronoun (se/nous/vous) + auxiliary être + hyphen + il/elle/nous/vous/ils/elles + past participle
Laurent s'est couché à onze heures. -> Laurent s'est-il couché à onze heures ?
Laurent went to bed at 11. -> Did Laurent go to bed at 11?
Here are more examples:
See also Forming inverted questions in Le Présent (except il, elle, on forms)
Forming inverted questions in Le Présent with il, elle, on
Learn more about these related French grammar topics
Examples and resources
Q&A Forum 5 questions, 11 answers
MenaKwiziq community member
Negativ Form
Asked 5 months ago
Hi Mena,
All these negative forms are correct...
Hope this helps!
GeorgeKwiziq Q&A regular contributor
They are not common, but they are certainly correct French, or else they would not be here.
Mena asked:View original
Negativ Form
Are these negativ forms correct and common?
Tu ne t'es pas levé à 5 heures?
Laurent ne s'est-il pas couché à onze heures ?
Paul ne se brosse-t-il pas les dents?
Thank you!
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Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Time between Kwiz availability
Is there a chance that the Kwiz(es) could be more varied, challenging, and taken more frequently within the specific subject areas, say, after 24 hours of taking the last Kwiz ? ( I hope I am posting this in the right place and apologize if I am not :-)
Thank you,
Colleen
Asked 7 months ago
Hi Colleen - we're changing microkwizzes to make them smart soon. Currently they are fixed sets of questions so you're better off adding the lesson to your notebook or just testing against your studyplan for now.
Colleen asked:View original
Time between Kwiz availability
Is there a chance that the Kwiz(es) could be more varied, challenging, and taken more frequently within the specific subject areas, say, after 24 hours of taking the last Kwiz ? ( I hope I am posting this in the right place and apologize if I am not :-)
Thank you,
Colleen
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SusanKwiziq community member
Word order in Questions with reflexive verbs, passe composé.
Dear all,
In an exercise in a lesson I was doing on I came across the phrase “How were your holidays?” or “How did your holidays go”. I had to review the lessons on forming questions by inversion in the présent and passé composé with reflexive verbs, and based on what I found there, I decided that if the affirmative is “Elles se sont bien passées” / “Tes vacances sont bien passées”, the question would be “Comment se sont-elles passées?” (which I’m reasonably confident is correct - I hope...!) BUT if we want to use “the holidays” instead of “they”, when I follow the rule I write “Comment tes vacances se sont-elles passées” or “Comment se sont tes vacances passées? But my ear tells me this is wrong, and indeed when I look it up, the correct solution is “Comment se sont passées tes vacances?”. Which makes me wonder is there a rule that if we want to use the name of the thing in question, the subject, (instead of -ils / -elle / -elles / etc), the position changes and instead of being positioned after the auxiliary verb with a hyphen the subject goes to the end….????
I'm sure there are probably already Kwiziq lessons that would clarify this for me, so if anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be great...!
With Thanks,
Susan Wood.
Asked 11 months ago
Hi Susan ,
If you want to use 'tes vacances' in your sentence you can say :
"Comment tes vacances se sont-elles passées?"
Or
" Comment se sont passées tes vacances?"
Or more explicitly -
"Tes vacances, se sont bien/mal passées?"
Hope this helps!
Susan asked:View original
Word order in Questions with reflexive verbs, passe composé.
Dear all,
In an exercise in a lesson I was doing on I came across the phrase “How were your holidays?” or “How did your holidays go”. I had to review the lessons on forming questions by inversion in the présent and passé composé with reflexive verbs, and based on what I found there, I decided that if the affirmative is “Elles se sont bien passées” / “Tes vacances sont bien passées”, the question would be “Comment se sont-elles passées?” (which I’m reasonably confident is correct - I hope...!) BUT if we want to use “the holidays” instead of “they”, when I follow the rule I write “Comment tes vacances se sont-elles passées” or “Comment se sont tes vacances passées? But my ear tells me this is wrong, and indeed when I look it up, the correct solution is “Comment se sont passées tes vacances?”. Which makes me wonder is there a rule that if we want to use the name of the thing in question, the subject, (instead of -ils / -elle / -elles / etc), the position changes and instead of being positioned after the auxiliary verb with a hyphen the subject goes to the end….????
I'm sure there are probably already Kwiziq lessons that would clarify this for me, so if anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be great...!
With Thanks,
Susan Wood.
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JenniferKwiziq Q&A regular contributor
pourquoi ma chatte s'est-elle léchée la patte?
should there be a second 'e' on léchée in this case as the noun comes after the verb?
Asked 11 months ago
Merci à tous !
It was indeed a mistake, and has now been fixed thanks to you :)
Chris Kwiziq Q&A super contributor
I would agree with you: the reflexive pronoun is indirect and the noun (la patte) is direct. In this case the participle would not get accorded to the direct object. This would be parallel to the sentence:
Elles se sont lavé les cheveux. -- They washed their hair, given in https://www.thoughtco.com/french-accented-capitals-4085546
I have it on good authority, though, that a lot of French native speakers have trouble with this also. :)
JenniferKwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Yes, well it does seem to go against the rule! Thank you (I will keep making that mistake though, lucky I don't have a cat).
SandyKwiziq community member
It doesn't seem to be fixed yet (13 june 2019). I just spent several minutes trying to figure it out (before seeing these messages).
MillerKwiziq community member
Interesting example they made up... with léchée and chatte in the same sentence.
Jennifer asked:View original
pourquoi ma chatte s'est-elle léchée la patte?
should there be a second 'e' on léchée in this case as the noun comes after the verb?
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KevinKwiziq community member
Me suis-je coupé... Isn't couper a verb that takes avoir? Me ai-je coupé... What is the exception here?
Asked 1 year ago
Hi Kevin,
'Couper quelque chose' will indeed take 'avoir' as in,
J'ai déja coupé la baguette= I have cut the bread already
but this is 'se couper' ( to cut one/yourself) which as all reflexive verb takes 'être'.
So -
Me suis-je coupé/e ? is correct....
Hope this helps!
Kevin asked:View original
Me suis-je coupé... Isn't couper a verb that takes avoir? Me ai-je coupé... What is the exception here?
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