In a television show called Mensonges, a character who plays an investigator said to another character:
Pis? Ça avance-tu mon enquête?
In this question, we’ve got an example of tu being used to ask a yes-no question.
pis?
so? well? and?
ça avance
it’s advancing, moving forward
ça avance-tu?
is it advancing?, moving forward?
mon enquête
my investigation
Remember, the tu in this question can be understood as meaning yes or no? (and not you). It’s used to ask yes-no questions in an informal way in spoken French. Ça avance-[oui ou non], mon enquête?
Pis is a contraction of puis. It sounds as if it were written pi.
Pis? Ça avance-tu mon enquête?
So? Is my investigation moving forward?
So? Is my investigation going well?
This yes-no tu is placed after the conjugated verb.
Tu veux-tu?
Do you want to?
Ça se peut-tu?
Is that possible?
In tenses like the past tense, where there’s an auxiliary and a past participle, tu is placed after the auxiliary.
J’ai-tu dit ça?
Did I say that?
Tu is used to ask yes-no questions. You can’t use it with quand, pourquoi, qui, etc. For example, you can’t ask pourquoi tu fais-tu ça? because that’s not a yes-no question. You’d ask pourquoi tu fais ça? instead.
Can you turn these into yes-no questions with tu?
1. T’aimes ça.
2. On a besoin de ça.
3. T’as peur.
Answers
1. T’aimes-tu ça?
2. On a-tu besoin de ça?
3. T’as-tu peur?
There are many more examples of yes-no questions using tu in the downloadable OffQc books.
