Sometimes you’ll hear people say that, in Québécois French, the second-person singular tu (meaning you) gets added in anywhere and everywhere in sentences… without rhyme or reason!
On y va-tu?
T’as-tu vu ça?
Ça se peut-tu?
Shall we go?
Did you see that?
Is that possible?
But, as we’ve seen before, the tu they’re referring to isn’t the second-personal singular at all. It’s a yes-no question marker used in informal language.
On y va-[oui/non]?
T’as-[oui/non] vu ça?
Ça se peut-[oui/non]?
If you leave out the yes-no tu, the question still means the same thing:
On y va?
T’as vu ça?
Ça se peut?
But, rather than just making the voice rise at the end like in those last examples, the tu is often included when formulating yes-no questions — or at least in informal language, it is.
The answer to the title of this blog post is ça se peut-tu, with a t in peut, not an x. That’s because the tu in ça se peut-tu isn’t the second-person singular; it’s not the subject. The conjugation, then, aligns with ça (i.e., peut), not tu (i.e., not peux).
Why is this important?
The next time you hear someone say the Québécois add in the second-person singular tu just about anywhere they like as if it were salt, you’ll know it’s not true!
