The expression How come? can be expressed in different ways in French, depending on the level of speech as well as whether it's followed by a conjugated verb or not.
How come?
To express How come? on its own, there are two ways:
- The unformal, familiar phrase:
Comment ça se fait ?
- the more elegant, formal phrase:
Comment cela se fait-il ?
-> Note the use of inverted question form to emphasise the elegant structure.
- The unformal, familiar phrase:
Comment ça se fait ?
- the more elegant, formal phrase:
Comment cela se fait-il ?
-> Note the use of inverted question form to emphasise the elegant structure.
How come [something happens]? / How is it that [something happens]?
To express how come / how is it that ...? followed by a conjugated verb in French, you can either use:
- the more familiar
Comment ça se fait que ... ?
OR
- the more elegant
Comment se fait-il que ... ?
-> Note the use of inverted question form to emphasise the elegant structure.
ATTENTION:
In both cases, the conjugated verb after que will be in Le Subjonctif Présent or Passé.
Case of Comment cela se fait que ... ?
Comment cela se fait que ... ? can be heard sometimes, however it's grammatically incorrect as the way to construct this form is by using the inversion -il, and NOT cela.
Same issue with Comment cela se fait-il que ... ? which is simply redundant, as it literally means How come this that ...?
Same issue with Comment cela se fait-il que ... ? which is simply redundant, as it literally means How come this that ...?
Read: how to conjugate the subjunctive for regular verbs.
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