Learn French: Le petit-déjeuner est prêt ?

In spoken French, the most common way to ask a simple yes/no question is to keep the exact same word order as a normal sentence. You just make your voice go up at the end. Le petit-déjeuner est prêt means 'Breakfast is ready', and saying it with a rising pitch turns it into a question!

What does petit-déjeuner literally translate to?

It literally means 'little lunch'. In French, le déjeuner is lunch, so le petit-déjeuner is the smaller meal you eat first thing in the morning.

Would the word prêt change if we were asking if something else was ready?

Yes. Prêt (ready) is masculine here because it describes le petit-déjeuner, which is a masculine noun. If you were asking if a feminine noun was ready, like a pizza (la pizza), you would add an -e to the end and pronounce the 't' sound: La pizza est prête ?

Why is there an empty space before the question mark?

In French, you always put a space before punctuation marks that are made of two parts. This includes question marks, exclamation points, colons, and semicolons.