# FR: je le sais-tu, moi ?



## Kelly B

Good morning!

I understand this expression to mean, rhetorically, _How do (would) I know?_ (something like _I have no idea, so why would you ask me, you idiot?_) but I can't figure out why the words are arranged as they are. 

Can you please shed light on the subject? Thanks!


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## Gimbee

There is indeed something very strange in this sentence, even for a native speaker. One verb "sais" has two subjects "I" and "tu", which is absolutely incorrect grammatically. 
I think your understanding is good as far as something can be made with this sentence!
Is there some context to it?


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## Maître Capello

That expression (_je le sais-tu, moi ?_) doesn't make *any* sense to me… Are you sure it is spelled this way? Did you read or hear it? In case you heard it, was it a native French speaker who spoke?


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## Kelly B

I have the impression that it is from Québec. I've seen it in several replies to stupid questions (very sorry that I don't have a specific one at hand, I know how annoying that is ), and searching on it in quotation marks yields a number of additional examples where that interpretation makes sense.

That doesn't mean it's spelled right, though.


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## timpeac

Kelly B said:


> I have the impression that it is from Québec. I've seen it in several replies to stupid questions (very sorry that I don't have a specific one at hand, I know how annoying that is ), and searching on it in quotation marks yields a number of additional examples where that interpretation makes sense.
> 
> That doesn't mean it's spelled right, though.


I've never heard it said - only seen it on the net - but I also assumed it was Canadian because people often add Canadian swear words like "calisse" "calvaire" after it.


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## Albert 50

In some parts of Canada  (though not where I was raised...)  there are people who use "tu" as an indication of a question.  Rather than use "Est-ce que...?,  in some dialects "tu"  is placed after the verb.  In this case it is not the second person singular pronoun at all.

An example:  "Je dois-tu recommencer mes devoirs?" =  Est-ce que je dois recommencer mes devoirs?  (Do I need to start my home-woirk over?).

I've never used this form but it is common in some areas among people "qui ne soignent pas leur français".   I assume it is an archaic usage but am not sure...  At any rate,  on those rare occasions when my children used "tu" in this way  (when posing a question) I corrected them.

Albert


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## timpeac

Albert 50 said:


> In some parts of Canada (though not where I was raised...) there are people who use "tu" as an indication of a question. Rather than use "Est-ce que...?, in some dialects "tu" is placed after the verb. In this case it is not the second person singular pronoun at all.
> 
> An example: "Je dois-tu recommencer mes devoirs?" = Est-ce que je dois recommencer mes devoirs? (Do I need to start my home-woirk over?).
> 
> I've never used this form but it is common in some areas among people "qui ne soignent pas leur français". I assume it is an archaic usage but am not sure... At any rate, on those rare occasions when my children used "tu" in this way (when posing a question) I corrected them.
> 
> Albert


I've heard of something similar - but perhaps a report of the same thing. I heard that it was "ti", and that this was short for "t-il". So in the same way "il joue" becomes "joue-t-il" the "til" was generalised to all questions (in the spoken form where the final "l" is lost), even where the "t" was not etymologically supported. So you would find questions phrased as declarative statements with the "ti" added such as "tu viens-ti ce soir ?", "vous voulez-ti du pain ?" (supposedly based on a question such as "Jean, vient-il ce soir ?"). In this way "ti" became effectively an interrogative particle, in the way "ne" was in Latin, its presence indicating a sentence was interrogative rather than declatative instead of relying on the traditional way of indicating this, namely changing the word order.

I don't have any first-hand experience of this, but it's what I heard.


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## Montaigne

Je l'sais t-y? is extremely poor french for "comment le saurais-je ?".


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## timpeac

I found this in a wikipedia article on aspects of Canadian French -




> Particle _-tu_ used (1) to form tag questions, (2) sometimes to express exclamatative sentences) and (3) on other times it's used with excess, simply for its sound:
> C'est-tu prêt? (Est-ce prêt? / C'est prêt? / Est-ce que c'est prêt?) _Is it ready?_ On a-tu bien mangé! (Qu'est-ce qu'on a bien mangé!) _We ate well, didn't we?_ T'as-tu pris tes pillules? (Est-ce que tu as pris tes médicaments?) _Have you taken your medications?_



It goes on to say that the particle is usually "ti" in other popular varieties of French. Unfortunately it doesn't say why "ti" (for which I give a possible explanation above) might be "tu" in Canada.


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## Kelly B

Thanks so much for the comments and research! I found it very interesting.


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## victorvoyou

I live in Québec and hear this being used every single day. Obviously this grammatical construction is not "proper" French that one sees in textbooks, but is one which is used VERY OFTEN by Québecois francophones in informal speech, especially in the Quebec City and Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean regions in my experience. Common examples are,

"c'est-tu bon?" (Is it good?)
"ça fait-tu ton affaire?" or the equivalent "ça marche-tu?" (Does that work [for you] ?)
"t'as-tu vu ton père?" (Did you see your father?)

The "-tu" is tagged onto the verb and can replace "est-ce que" when asking any sort of question (as in the third example above). Additionally, as in the first two examples above, it can shade the sense of the question by more specifically invoking the other person's opinion or impression. So, when I say "ça marche-tu?" or "ç'est-tu bon", I'm also trying to say "How does that work for you?" or "Do you think it's good?" and not just "Does that work?" or "Is it good?". 

This construction seems to be the extension of typical noun-verb inversion of the second person singular ("sais-tu à quelle heure il part?" or "finis-tu le livre?" being grammatically correct ways to ask a question) into first and third person singulars and plurals.


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## corcovado

Kelly, are you maybe thinking of "qu"est-ce que j'en sais, moi?" which would be "what do _I_ know?" with stress on the I, or maybe with "qu'est ce que j'en ai à faire, moi?" which would be "what do I care"?


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## Lacuzon

Hi,

I understand that _je le sais-tu, moi_ ? as if it were _Qu'en sais-je_, moi ? Or _Qu'est-ce que j'en sais, moi ?_ as corcovado said. But I think, because it is shorter, that _Qu'en sais-je_ is closer to the orginal sentence.


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## Pedro y La Torre

One should be aware that even the most highly educated Québécois use this in common speech. It is very confusing at first, but you get used to it after a while. I believe the particle -ti is still relatively widely used by older generations in rural Western France, from whence the Québécois get their ''-tu''. This would tend to make sense as most Québécois seem to be of Norman/Poitou descent.


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