Les Mots Interrogatifs — French question words | Reference
🖨️ Print-friendly: use Ctrl+P (⌘P) or your browser menu to print this chart cleanly.
All the French question words — qui, que, où, quand, pourquoi, comment — with meanings, examples and audio. French question words. This guide covers the essential French Les Mots Interrogatifs — from qui (who) to à quelle heure (at what time) — each with its English meaning. Learn them, then test yourself with the games below.
Les Mots Interrogatifs
French question words
🎬 The 20-second version
5 quick questions on « Les Mots Interrogatifs » — guess before the reveal. Practise with the free games → Open this short as a page — transcript included →
📘 Three ways to ask a question
- Intonation (spoken): Tu viens ? — just raise your voice at the end.
- Est-ce que (neutral): Est-ce que tu viens ? — works everywhere, always correct.
- Inversion (formal): Viens-tu ? — add -t- between vowels: A-t-il faim ?
- quel agrees: quel livre, quelle heure, quels amis, quelles couleurs.
- Qu’est-ce que = what (object): Qu’est-ce que tu fais ? — Qu’est-ce qui = what (subject): Qu’est-ce qui se passe ?
- combien de + noun (no article): combien de personnes ?
🇬🇧 The interrogative toolkit in plain English
Every question in French is built from a small, closed set of interrogative words — and unlike much of French grammar, this is a list you can actually finish. The chart above gives the words; here is how the French language sorts them, because each behaves like a different part of speech:
- Interrogative pronouns — qui (who) and que/quoi (que means “what” before a verb, quoi after a preposition). A pronoun stands in for the unknown thing itself.
- The interrogative adjective — quel/quelle/quels/quelles, which agrees like any adjective: « Quelle heure est-il ? »
- Interrogative adverbs — où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien: place, time, manner, reason, quantity. An adverb asks about the circumstances, not the thing.
Then comes word order, and this rule decides how you sound. Spoken French overwhelmingly keeps the statement order and adds the interrogative word — « Tu pars quand ? » — or drops in est-ce que: « Quand est-ce que tu pars ? ». Inversion (« Quand pars-tu ? ») is the careful, written register. All three are correct; everyday conversation runs on the first two, and rising tone alone can turn any statement into a yes/no question. To speak naturally, master est-ce que first — it works with every interrogative word, never changes the verb, and lets you construct a question using the words you already have. One more step for indirect questions: after « je me demande… » (I wonder), keep statement order and never est-ce que — « je me demande où il habite ».
Why does such a common corner of french grammar deserve its own page? Because questions are the engine of conversation: to engage anyone in France — or communicate confidently in French anywhere — you mostly need to ask things, and every rule above covers thousands of everyday sentences. The equivalent list in English (who, what, where, when, why, how) maps almost one-to-one, which makes this one of the rare topics where language learning gives you full mastery in a week. A last tip for context: pourquoi gets answered with parce que — a pair the games below will drill until it’s reflex.
French question words — FAQ
What are question words in French?
The core set: qui, que/quoi, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien, and the adjective quel (in four forms). With est-ce que and intonation, they generate nearly every question in french conversation.
What are the 10 question words?
Count them: qui, que, quoi, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien, quel and « qu’est-ce que » as the ready-made tenth — the exact list in the chart above, each with several different uses.
What are some French questions?
« Comment tu t’appelles ? », « Où habites-tu ? », « Quand est-ce qu’on mange ? », « Pourquoi pas ? », « Combien ça coûte ? » — five patterns you can recycle by swapping the verb.
What are the 100 most common words in French?
The interrogatives above are all inside the top 200 — but frequency lists mix pronouns, articles and verbs. Learn the question words as a set first: they unlock discover-and-ask conversation faster than any frequency list.
🔊 Useful phrases
🔊 Example sentences
✍️ Practice
where en français ? (question word)
Show answer
où
why en français ? (question word)
Show answer
pourquoi
how much en français ? (question word)
Show answer
combien
___ heure est-il ? (agreement of quel)
Show answer
Quelle
___ se passe ? (= what’s happening) (subject)
Show answer
Qu’est-ce qui
🎮 Practise this with games
🎯 More practice — vocabulary recall — both directions
How do you say « who »? (recall)
Show answer
qui
What does « que / qu’ » mean? (recall)
Show answer
what
How do you say « what »? (recall)
Show answer
quoi
What does « où » mean? (recall)
Show answer
where
How do you say « when »? (recall)
Show answer
quand
What does « comment » mean? (recall)
Show answer
how
How do you say « why »? (recall)
Show answer
pourquoi
What does « combien » mean? (recall)
Show answer
how much / many
Go further: this chart is one small piece — get the full picture in our guide How to introduce yourself in French.
French question words — FAQ
What are the French Les Mots Interrogatifs?
The main ones are: qui (who), que / qu’ (what), quoi (what (informal)), où (where), quand (when), comment (how). The list above shows all of them with examples.
How do you say these in French?
For example: who is « qui », what is « que / qu’ », what (informal) is « quoi ». Learn each with its English meaning from the list above.
How can I remember French Les Mots Interrogatifs?
Practise them in real questions and sentences, and use the interactive games below. Little and often beats cramming.
🎮 Practise this lesson
Games built from this exact page — turn what you just read into play: