A man in the street approached me to ask for the time. Although you’ve almost certainly learned quelle heure est-il?, that’s not what he said.
Here’s what he did say:
Quelle heure qu’y’est, monsieur?
The qu’y’est part is a contraction of qu’il est. It sounds like kyé.
Another colloquial way of saying this, which we’ve already seen, is:
Y’est quelle heure?
Again, y’est is a contraction of il est; it sounds like yé.
We’ve been looking at how que often gets inserted after question words in colloquial French, like comment:
Comment qu’on appelle ça?
Otherwise, the question word can go at the end:
On appelle ça comment?
The same thing is happening with our two questions asking for the time:
Quelle heure qu’y’est?
Y’est quelle heure?
