# FR: What does your husband think?



## matbquick

Salut à tous,

I am a little confused with regards to the word order in Qu'est-ce que when considering the third person. For example -

How best to translate - "What does your husband think?". Is it simply in the same word order as with a subject pronoun i.e. -

- Qu'est-ce que votre mari pense?
- Que pense votre mari?

or is it more complicated i.e.

- Que votre mari pense-t-il?

Merci beaucoup,

Matt


----------



## snarkhunter

matbquick said:


> Salut à tous,
> 
> I am a little confused with regards to the word order in Qu'est-ce que when considering the third person. For example -
> 
> How best to translate - "What does your husband think?". Is it simply in the same word order as with a subject pronoun i.e. -
> 
> - Qu'est-ce que votre mari pense?
> - Que pense votre mari?
> 
> or is it more complicated i.e.
> 
> - Que votre mari pense-t-il?
> 
> Merci beaucoup,
> 
> Matt


The last one is wrong because this would result in the sentence having two subjects!


----------



## matbquick

Merci de votre réponse,

It was as simple as I thought. Sometimes with so much to learn, you feel simpe things should be more complicated than necessary!!


----------



## Bobstein

Can you say: Et votre mari, que pense-t-il?


----------



## snarkhunter

matbquick said:


> Merci de votre réponse,
> 
> It was as simple as I thought. Sometimes with so much to learn, you feel simpe things should be more complicated than necessary!!


You're welcome!

And this is what is so complicated about languages: most of the time, there's nothing to tell you when it's actually better to choose the simpler way!



Bobstein said:


> Can you say: Et votre mari, que pense-t-il?


Yes you can. This could come as a direct response to a previous statement from your interlocutor.


----------



## Maître Capello

snarkhunter said:


> The last one is wrong because this would result in the sentence having two subjects!


 No, although it is a bit formal, the last one is definitely correct!_ → Que votre mari pense-t-il ?_ 

(By the way, note that the subject is often "repeated" by a pronoun in interrogations with subject-verb inversion: _Où ce chemin mène-t-il ? Comment Pierre peut-il s'offrir une telle voiture ?_)


----------



## Aranjuez

Il pense quoi, votre mari? Votre mari, il pense quoi? - Are these two sentences correct? Or, are they too informal?
Merci


----------



## Maître Capello

They are both correct but informal as you suggested. As a matter of fact, you should never use them in writing (that is, except for dialogues)…


----------



## The_flake

Sorry but "Que votre mari pense-t-il?" is wrong.
You can say "*A quoi* pense votre mari" if you just want to know what he's thinking of, and "Qu'*en *pense votre mari?" if you want to know what the husband think about a certain subject. As you don't say "Que penses-tu?", or "Je pense." but "A quoi penses-tu?" and "Je pense *à quelque chose*" (or Je réfléchis.)


----------



## brumeux

Maître Capello said:


> No, although it is a bit formal, the last one is definitely correct!_ → Que votre mari pense-t-il ?_
> 
> (By the way, note that the subject is often "repeated" by a pronoun in interrogations with subject-verb inversion: _Où ce chemin mène-t-il ? Comment Pierre peut-il s'offrir une telle voiture ?_)


 



The_flake said:


> Sorry but "Que votre mari pense-t-il?" is wrong.
> You can say "*A quoi* pense votre mari" if you just want to know what he's thinking of, and "Qu'*en *pense votre mari?" if you want to know what the husband think about a certain subject. As you don't say "Que penses-tu?", or "Je pense." but "A quoi penses-tu?" and "Je pense *à quelque chose*" (or Je réfléchis.)


 
I'm confused by the disagreement among francophones on this question. M capello says it's correct, snarkhunter and flake say it's not. My course in French has many dozens of examples of a repeated subject with inversion, just as m capello says. Why do the (you) others think "que votre mari pense-t-il" is incorrect? Is it the repeated subject, or the "à quoi"/"de quoi" issue, or something else? 

Thanks in advance for clarifying.


----------



## jann

Well I'm not a native speaker, but I believe that "que votre mari pense-t-il ?" is technically correct. This kind of inversion with a specified subject plus a subject pronoun also happens to be quite unusual in everyday speech (less so if the specified subject is a person's name, however).  This probably has something to do with why a few native speakers thought it sounded funny. 

The Flake explained the major reason that the expression sounds odd:  we don't often use _penser_ by itself in French.  Instead, we use _penser à_ or _penser de_... which give corresponding interrogative forms with _à quoi_ ("à quoi votre mari pense-t-il ?" = what is your husband thinking about?) or with _en_ ("qu'en pense votre mari ?" = what does your husband think of it?)


----------



## brumeux

Thanks for the quick response and clarification!  Best of all, everyone was correct!


----------



## soulzy

So, I had the same question, and am glad this discussion is ongoing, to say: "What do you think (about something)?" Would you advice only the following constructions?
1. Qu'est-ce que tu en penses?
2. Qu'en penses tu?
3. Toi, qu'en penses-tu?
4. Qu'en toi, penses-tu?
5. Qu'en penses-tu, toi?

and so would all of the options be equally ok? And would they be preferable to  the same constructions without 'en'?


----------



## Oddmania

soulzy said:


> So, I had the same question, and am glad this discussion is ongoing, to say: "What do you think (about something)?" Would you advice only the following constructions?
> 
> 1. Qu'est-ce que tu en penses?
> 
> This is perfectly normal and natural, I think this is the sentence that most of the French people would state
> 
> 2. Qu'en penses tu?
> 
> Pretty much the same as above, I think the inversion sounds a bit more formal, but with a verb as common as _Penser_, _Qu'en penses-tu ?_ has become as natural as _Qu'est-ce que tu en penses ?_
> 
> 3. Toi, qu'en penses-tu?
> 
> Here, you emphasize _Toi. (__Okay, he told me what he thought, but YOU, what do YOU think about this ?)
> _
> 4. Qu'en toi, penses-tu?
> 
> This one isn't correct  You can't put _toi_ here, haphazardly in the middle of the sentence like an adverb.
> 
> 5. Qu'en penses-tu, toi?
> 
> It's very similar to the third one, but as _Toi_ is at the end of the sentence, it's way less marked .


----------



## The_flake

The problem comes from the verb "think". It means both "penser" and "réfléchir". But you usually don' t use the verb "penser" alone. In english you can say "I was just thinking." but in French you don't say "Je pensais." but "Je réfléchissais."


----------



## Maître Capello

The_flake said:


> Sorry but "Que votre mari pense-t-il?" is wrong.


No, it is definitely correct from a grammatical standpoint. At any rate, your comment about _penser_ equally applies to both _Qu'est-ce que votre mari pense?_ and _Que pense votre mari?_… My only point was that, although it is the least common way to say it, it is not incorrect to say _Que votre mari (en) pense-t-il?_

According to Grevisse:


> Plus d’un auteur, continuant  un usage ancien, met le sujet immédiatement après _ que_, en reprenant ce sujet par un  pronom personnel : _Que Dieu doit-il aux hommes ?_ (Sév., dans Brunot, _Hist._, t. VI, p. 1657.) —  _Que cela veut-il dire ?_ (Montesq., _L. pers._, LXXIV, texte des premières  éd.) […]


----------



## soulzy

Milles mercis!


----------



## geostan

Que + complex inversion is one of those curiosities that were last used in the 19th century, I believe. So while structurally correct, it is virtually unused and might as well be deemed incorrect.

Note that this isn't the case with most interrogatives.

Comment va ton mari?  Comment ton mari va-t-il?


----------



## kervarker

Bonjour,

Si Grévisse dit que "Que votre mari pense-t-il ?" est possible, je ne vais pas dire le contraire, mais c'est une forme qu'on n'emploie jamais en pratique, ni à l'écrit ni à l'oral

A l'oral, je crois que la formule la plus utilisée serait : "Votre mari, qu'est-ce qu'il pense ?" et à l'écrit : "que pense votre mari ?"


----------



## brumeux

Thanks to geostan and kervarker for these last two posts, which have shed more light on an explanation given previously.  And to correct my own post:  When I stated earlier in this thread that my French course had many examples of "subject-verb reversal with repeated subject" (kind of a mouthful, that), in fact I've just verified that all of them begin either with "comment" or "pourquoi," not with "que," so this is in line with geostan's comments.


----------



## kenjoluma

But doesn't the verb 'penser' always need a preposition, such as 'à' or 'de'?

_Qu'est-ce que ton mari pense?_ should be _À quoi est-ce que ton mari pense?_ 

... No? Wow. French is one complicated language.


----------



## Chimel

kenjoluma said:


> But doesn't the verb 'penser' always need a preposition, such as 'à' or 'de'?


Not at all. Same as in English: "What do you think?" = "Que penses-tu?", no preposition in needed (remember also Descartes' "Je pense donc je suis").

French is not more complicated, for that matter...


----------

