Breakdown of Vous veniez de cacher quoi sous le foulard ?
vous
you (plural/formal)
sous
under
quoi
what
cacher
to hide
venir
to come
de
to (introducing an infinitive after a verb)
le foulard
the scarf
Questions & Answers about Vous veniez de cacher quoi sous le foulard ?
Why is veniez in the imparfait tense here instead of the passé composé?
To say you 'had just' done something in the past, you use the imparfait of venir plus de plus an infinitive. If we used the passé composé (vous êtes venus), it would change the meaning to a physical movement: 'you came to hide' something, rather than the time-based 'you had just hidden' it.
How does the construction veniez de cacher translate to 'had just hidden'?
The phrase venir de followed by an infinitive literally means 'to come from' doing an action. When venir is in the present tense, it means you 'have just' done it. By putting venir in the imparfait (veniez), the timeline shifts back a step into the past, meaning you 'had just' done it.
Why is quoi near the end of the sentence instead of at the beginning?
In everyday spoken French, it is very common to keep the standard subject-verb word order and drop the question word exactly where the object would go in a normal statement. This is called an 'in situ' question. It means the exact same thing as the slightly more formal Qu'est-ce que vous veniez de cacher.
I learned that scarf is une écharpe. What is un foulard?
While both translate to 'scarf', un foulard is usually a lighter, decorative scarf made of thin material like silk or cotton, sometimes worn on the head. Une écharpe is a thick, warm winter scarf, usually knitted from wool.
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