Learn French: Comment vas-tu ? Tu vas à la fête ? - How are you? Are you going to the party?

In French, you use the verb aller (to go) to talk about health and how someone is doing. So, Comment vas-tu ? literally translates to "How are you going?", which is the standard French way to ask "How are you?".

Is vas an irregular verb? It doesn't look like typical -er verbs.

Yes! The verb aller (to go) ends in -er, but it is highly irregular. You just have to memorize its forms. For tu (informal "you"), the present tense form is always tu vas.

Why are the two questions formed differently (vas-tu vs Tu vas) ?

French has a few ways to ask questions. Comment vas-tu ? uses inversion, swapping the verb and the pronoun, which is very common with question words like Comment. The second question, Tu vas à la fête ?, keeps the normal statement word order but uses a rising tone of voice to make it a question. This is the most common way to ask yes/no questions in everyday spoken French.

Why is it à la fête? Could we just say à fête?