Learn French: Combien de frères est-ce que vous avez ?

In French, adding est-ce que right after a question phrase is a standard way to ask a question. It acts a lot like the English helper word 'do' and lets you keep the rest of the sentence in its normal order: the subject (vous) followed by the verb (avez).

Since frères is plural, why is it combien de and not combien des?

After quantity words like combien (how many/how much) or beaucoup (a lot), French always uses de (or d' before a vowel), never des. Even though you are asking about multiple brothers, the phrase combien de is locked in and does not change.

Can I just ask Vous avez combien de frères?

Yes! In everyday spoken French, you can often drop est-ce que and put the question phrase at the end. However, when you use the est-ce que structure (which is standard and polite), the question phrase combien de frères must go at the very beginning.

Do I pronounce the 's' at the end of vous in this sentence?

Yes! Because the following verb avez starts with a vowel, you make a sound connection (called a liaison). The silent 's' in vous wakes up, connects to the 'a' in avez, and makes a 'z' sound. It sounds like 'voo-zah-vay'.