Meaning
Asking for the identity or nature of something.
Practice Bank
3 exercisesIf someone points to an unfamiliar object and asks, '____ ____ ____ ____?' they are asking for its identity.
A common French phrase to inquire about something's nature is '____ ____ ____ ____?'
When you want to know 'What is this?' or 'What is that?' in French, you would say '____ ____ ____ ____?'
🎉 Score: /3
The phrase "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" is a fundamental and very common French interrogative expression meaning "What is it?" or "What is that?". Its construction can be broken down to understand its origins and how it evolved into its current form. **Qu'**: This is a contraction of "que," which means "what" or "that." "Que" comes from the Latin "quid," meaning "what." The contraction "qu'" occurs before a vowel, which is the case here with "est." **Est**: This is the third-person singular present indicative form of the verb "être," meaning "to be." "Être" derives from a combination of Latin verbs: "esse" (to be), "stare" (to stand), and "sedere" (to sit). **Ce**: This is a demonstrative pronoun, meaning "this" or "that." It comes from the Latin "ecce hoc," where "ecce" means "behold" and "hoc" means "this." **Que**: As mentioned, this is again "what" or "that," serving here as a relative pronoun or a conjunction, linking the parts of the question. Its repetition in this structure is characteristic of how French often forms interrogative phrases, especially when seeking to emphasize the question or make it more formal/complete. **C'est**: This is a contraction of "ce est," meaning "it is" or "this is." So, the final "c'est" acts as a tag question or a reassertion of the subject-verb pair that the initial "qu'est-ce" is questioning. **Evolution of the structure:** Historically, French questions could be formed more simply, such as "Que est ce?" or "Qu'est ce?" However, over time, French developed more complex interrogative structures, often involving inversion (e.g., "Est-ce que..." or "Que faites-vous?") or the use of "est-ce que" as an interrogative marker. The construction "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" is an extended form that became standard for its clarity and common usage. It essentially asks: "What is it that it is?" or more literally, "What is this that it is?" This seemingly redundant structure in English makes perfect sense in French, providing emphasis and a complete grammatical form for asking about the identity or nature of something. It is one of the most fundamental and frequently used questions in the French language, taught to beginners as a core expression.
