Word
Est-ce que vous visitez la ville maintenant ?
Meaning
Are you visiting the city now?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Est-ce que vous visitez la ville maintenant ?
vous
you (plural/formal)
maintenant
now
la ville
the city / the town
est-ce que
is it that / do / does (question marker)
Questions & Answers about Est-ce que vous visitez la ville maintenant ?
What exactly does est-ce que do at the start of this sentence?
Est-ce que acts like a built-in question mark at the beginning of a sentence. It signals to the listener that a yes/or/no question is coming. If you take it away, you are left with the regular statement vous visitez la ville maintenant (you are visiting the city now).
The English translation says "Are you visiting", but I don't see a word for "are" in the French sentence. Why is that?
In French, there is only one present tense. The single word visitez covers both "visit" and "are visiting". You never use the French word for "are" to translate action sentences like this!
Could I use this exact sentence to ask "Are you visiting Paul now?" by swapping the city for Paul?