Breakdown of Est-ce que tu as vu l'abeille qui a piqué le chien ?
tu
you (informal singular)
le chien
the dog
qui
who
avoir
to have
est-ce que
is it that / do / does (question marker)
voir
to see
l'abeille
the bee (f)
piquer
to sting / to bite
Questions & Answers about Est-ce que tu as vu l'abeille qui a piqué le chien ?
Why do we use qui here instead of que?
qui is the subject relative pronoun. We use it because the bee is the one doing the action in the second part of the sentence (the bee did the stinging). If the sentence was about the bee the dog chased, the bee would be the receiving object, and we would use que instead.
Wait, doesn't qui mean "who"? Why is it translated as "that" for a bee?
Why is the verb a piqué and not just piqué?
This is the passé composé, which is used for completed actions in the past. It requires a helping verb, which here is a (from avoir), followed by the past participle piqué. While English just says "stung", French literally says "has stung".
Can I leave out Est-ce que and still ask this question?
Yes! You can also ask this using rising intonation on a normal statement (Tu as vu l'abeille... ?) or by swapping the subject and verb (As-tu vu l'abeille... ?). Adding Est-ce que to the beginning is just one of the most standard ways to form a yes/no question in French.
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