Learn French: Vous préparez le déjeuner pour eux ? - Are you preparing lunch for them?

Vous préparez le déjeuner pour eux ?

Are you preparing lunch for them?

Breakdown of Vous préparez le déjeuner pour eux ?

them (masculine/mixed)

préparer

to prepare

Questions & Answers about Vous préparez le déjeuner pour eux ?

This looks exactly like a normal statement. How do we know it is a question?

In spoken French, the easiest way to ask a yes/no question is just to take a regular statement like Vous préparez le déjeuner pour eux and make your voice go up at the end. This is called rising intonation. You do not need to change the word order at all!

Why is "them" translated as eux here instead of ils?

Because it comes directly after a preposition, like pour, which means "for". In French, you cannot say pour ils. Instead, you have to use a special type of pronoun called a stress pronoun. The stress pronoun for a group of males, or a mixed group, is eux.

Does préparez mean "prepare" or "are preparing"?

It means both! French does not have a separate "-ing" tense like English does. Vous préparez can translate to "You prepare" or "You are preparing" depending on what makes the most sense in context.

Why do we need le before déjeuner? We would not say "preparing the lunch" in English.

French is much stricter than English about using articles, like "the" or "a", in front of nouns. Even when English drops the word "the" before meals, French still requires it, which is why we say le déjeuner.