Breakdown of Vous pourriez m'expliquer cet impôt ?
vous
you (plural/formal)
ce
this (before a noun)
pouvoir
to be able to / can
expliquer
to explain
Questions & Answers about Vous pourriez m'expliquer cet impôt ?
Why use pourriez instead of pouvez here?
Pourriez is the conditional form of pouvoir (to be able to). Using the conditional makes your request much softer and more polite. Vous pouvez means "You can," which can sound a bit direct or demanding, while Vous pourriez means "You could."
Why does m' come right before expliquer? Shouldn't it be Vous me pourriez expliquer?
In French, when you have a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive (an unconjugated verb, like expliquer), the object pronoun goes right in front of the infinitive it belongs to. Since the action being done to you is the explaining, m' (to me) goes directly before expliquer.
Impôt is a masculine word. Why does it use cet instead of ce?
Is it normal to ask a question without using inversion or est-ce que?