Breakdown of Est-ce que tu sais quel temple a été visité par la reine ?
être
to be
tu
you (informal singular)
avoir
to have
est-ce que
is it that / do / does (question marker)
visiter
to visit
quel
which / what (adjective)
savoir
to know (a fact), to know how to
par
by, through / out of (motive)
le temple
the temple
la reine
the queen
Questions & Answers about Est-ce que tu sais quel temple a été visité par la reine ?
Why is it a été visité instead of just a visité?
This is the passive voice in the passé composé (past tense). If we said a visité, it would mean the temple visited someone! To say the temple was visited, we use the passé composé of être (a été) plus the past participle visité.
Does visité need to agree with anything here?
Yes! In the passive voice, the past participle always agrees with the subject of the passive verb. The subject here is quel temple (masculine singular), so visité does not take any extra endings. If the subject were feminine, like quelle ville (which city), it would be a été visitée.
Why do we use par to say 'by' the queen?
In the passive voice, par is used to introduce the agent (the person or thing performing the action) for most physical or specific actions, like visiting. You will only see de used for 'by' with certain verbs that describe states, emotions, or being known.
Could I use tu connais instead of tu sais here?
Could I say lequel temple instead of quel temple?
No, because quel is an adjective that must go right before a noun to mean 'which temple'. Lequel is a pronoun meaning 'which one'. You would only use it if you dropped the word temple completely: Est-ce que tu sais lequel a été visité par la reine ? (Do you know which one was visited by the queen?).
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