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Où est-ce qu'ils vont, au Maroc ou à Rome ?

Où est-ce qu'ils vont, au Maroc ou à Rome ?
Where are they going, to Morocco or to Rome?
From Lesson 34:Prepositions for cities and countries (à, en, au, aux)·French

Questions & Answers about Où est-ce qu'ils vont, au Maroc ou à Rome ?

Why do we use au Maroc to mean "to Morocco"?
Morocco is a masculine country in French (le Maroc). When saying "to" or "in" a masculine country, you always use the preposition au. If it were a feminine country, you would use en (like en France).
Why is it à Rome and not au Rome?
Rome is a city. In French, you almost always use the preposition à to mean "to" or "in" for cities, without needing to worry about masculine or feminine.
What does est-ce qu' do in this sentence?
It is a question phrase that literally translates to "is it that". Adding it after the question word où (where) is a standard way to form a question in French. It turns the statement ils vont (they are going) into a question.
Why is it qu'ils instead of que ils?
The word que drops its e and gets an apostrophe because the next word, ils, starts with a vowel. This is a very common rule in French to make phrases smoother to pronounce.
I learned that ils vont means "they go". Why is it translated as "they are going"?
French does not have a separate "are doing" tense like English does. The present tense verb vont (from aller, meaning "to go") covers both "they go" and "they are going". You just rely on the context to know which one sounds best in English!

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