French language Q&A Forum

est-ce que: should i say 'Où est-ce que la chaise?' or 'Où est-ce que la chaise est? or 'Où est-ce qu'est la chaise'?

inversion: 'Où la chaise est-elle?'

Thanks

In the C1 writing challenge "A Ghost Story" the partial sentence "While I was pulling weeds" in the context "While I was pulling weeds ... I heard..." was translated "Tandis que j'arrachais les mauvaises herbes". "Alors que" was also suggested but my answer "Pendant que" was not. Why is that?

Larousse (https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/anglais-francais/while/624050) translates "while" as "pendant que" when it refers to a simultaneity of time (e.g. pendant que vous serez à Londres il faut visiter le British Museum), whereas "tandis que" and "alors que" it says are applicable to the case where "while" is used in the sense of "whereas" (e.g. elle est de gauche tandis qu'il est conservateur).

If you say the stem has to be the stem of the infinitive, then yes, you'll find lots of irregular verbs. But there's a much better rule, and I'd say the few verbs that don't follow it could be called irregular in the Subjonctif Présent.

- je/tu/il/elle/on/ils/elles: the stem is the Indicatif Présent third person plural, minus -ent

- nous/vous: the stem is the Indicatif Présent second/third first plural, minus -ons 

Examples:

aimer -> ils aiment -> aim-

venir -> ils viennent -> vienn-

tenir -> ils tiennent -> tienn-

prendre -> ils prennent -> prenn-

...

There are not that many exceptions to this rule. Some important ones:

NOTE: where there are two stems, the second one is for nous/vous, the first one is for all others.