This was my first time coming across the inverted questions.. 'puis je'
I read the lesson that that's more formal and 'est-ce que' is used more colloquially. I thought you could always replace est-ce que with just the interogative + subject + verb so I put 'Que je peux faire...' which was marked wrong. Is this wrong with these inverted questions?
And also in the lesson it mentioned "statement order"'questions being a possibility. What are these?
Bonjour Becky,
Qu'est-ce que je peux faire pour vous ? = What can I do for you?
Que puis-je faire pour vous ? = What can I do for you?
Est-ce que je peux faire quelque chose pour vous ? = Can I do something fpr you?
Take a look here:
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !
There are a few lessons on asking questions in French - you can use search function or go through lesson content if you want to focus specifically on these.
The lessons linked are good ones to start with to address your queries :
Que + [inverted statement] ? = What ... ? (French Questions)
Salut Becky,
To say "Puis-je ?" is equivalent to asking "May-I ?" in English.
My experience once in a restaurant in Lyon asking for another carafe of water, caused the waiter to comment very favourably.
I was quite taken aback, perhaps he was not used to polite requests.
Bonne Journée
Jim
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