Breakdown of Le chef demande si vous aviez cette compétence quand vous travailliez ici.
ici
here
vous
you (plural/formal)
avoir
to have
ce
this (before a noun)
travailler
to work
quand
when
le chef
the boss / the manager
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
si
if
demander
to ask (for) / to require / demand
la compétence
the skill
Questions & Answers about Le chef demande si vous aviez cette compétence quand vous travailliez ici.
Why do we use si instead of a question phrase like est-ce que?
This sentence is reporting a yes/no question. The direct question the boss asked was probably something like, 'Did you have this skill?' Just like in English, when we report a yes/no question, we connect it with 'if' or 'whether', which is si in French. You drop the original question format (like est-ce que or inversion) completely.
Because this is reported speech, do we need to shift the tenses of the verbs that follow?
Not here! The introductory verb, demande (asks), is in the present tense. When the reporting verb is in the present, the verbs inside the reported question keep their original tenses. The boss was asking about a past state, so aviez and travailliez stay in the imperfect tense.
Why are aviez and travailliez in the imperfect tense rather than the passé composé?
The imperfect is used here because both verbs describe ongoing past states or background situations. Having a skill (vous aviez) is a continuous past state, and working somewhere (vous travailliez) sets the background scene. There is no sudden, completed action here that would require the passé composé.
Travailliez looks like a typo with that double 'i'. Is that correct?
It is correct! To form the imperfect for vous, you take the present tense nous stem and add -iez. The stem for travailler is travaill-. When you add the -iez ending, you get travailliez. It looks a bit strange, but it follows the standard rule perfectly.
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