Learn Hardcore French: Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles? - What kind of music do you mainly listen to when you work?

genre is a masculine singular noun → so you use quel.
If it were musique directly (feminine singular), you’d say quelle musique écoutes-tu ?
Masculine plural: quels films aimes-tu ?
Feminine plural: quelles chansons écoutes-tu ?

So: quel genre (m.sg.) de musique… is grammatically required here.

Could I say Quelle musique écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles ? instead of Quel genre de musique…?

Yes, that is correct and natural, but the nuance changes slightly:

Quel genre de musique… ? = What kind/genre of music…? (rock, jazz, classical, etc.)
Quelle musique… ? = What music / which music…? (more general, or maybe asking for specific artists, playlists, or songs, depending on context).

Both are correct; quel genre de musique makes it explicit that you’re asking about the type of music.

Why is it genre de musique and not something like genre de la musique?

After nouns like genre, type, style, French often omits the article before the second noun:

un genre de musique
un type de film
ce style de vêtements

Here, de musique is a fixed structure after genre and does not take la.
If you were talking about music in general as an object of the verb, you’d say écouter de la musique (listen to music), but with genre, it’s genre de + noun without the article.

Why is it écoutes-tu with a hyphen? Could I just say tu écoutes?

Écoutes-tu is verb–subject inversion, a formal way to ask a question in French. The hyphen is mandatory in this structure:

Tu écoutes de la musique. (statement)
Écoutes-tu de la musique ? (question, formal/standard)

You have three common ways to form questions:

Inversion (formal/written)
- Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu… ?
Est-ce que (neutral/standard)
- Quel genre de musique est-ce que tu écoutes… ?
Intonation only (very common in speech, more informal)
- Quel genre de musique tu écoutes… ? (rising intonation)

All are understood; inversion is just the most “textbook” style.

Is Quel genre de musique tu écoutes principalement quand tu travailles ? correct?

Yes, this is colloquial spoken French and very common in conversation:

Grammatically, traditional rules prefer inversion or est-ce que.
In everyday speech, many people drop inversion and simply raise their intonation:
Quel genre de musique tu écoutes principalement quand tu travailles ?

In writing (especially formal writing), you should prefer:

Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles ?
or
Quel genre de musique est-ce que tu écoutes principalement quand tu travailles ?

In English we say “listen to music”. Why is there no to-word like that in écouter la musique or écouter de la musique?

In French, écouter is a direct transitive verb, which means it takes its object directly, without a preposition:

écouter de la musique = to listen to music
écouter la radio = to listen to the radio
écouter quelqu’un = to listen to someone

So you never say écouter à or écouter de in the sense of “listen to”. The de you see in de la musique is part of the partitive article (“some music”), not a translation of “to”.

Why is principalement in the middle of the sentence? Can it go in other places?

Yes, French adverbs like principalement are flexible, but some positions sound more natural than others. All of these are possible (with slightly different emphasis):

Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles ?
(default, very natural)
Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu quand tu travailles principalement ?
(odd: it sounds like you mainly work at that time)
Principalement, quel genre de musique écoutes-tu quand tu travailles ?
(emphasis on mainly, more rhetorical/structured)
Quand tu travailles, quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement ?
(also natural; emphasis on the when clause)

Most neutral and common: … écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles ?

Could I use surtout instead of principalement? What’s the difference?

You can, but there is a nuance:

principalement = mainly, for the most part (quite neutral, factual).
surtout = mostly / above all / especially (can sound a bit more emotional or emphatic).

Examples:

Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement quand tu travailles ?
→ strictly about what you listen to most of the time.
Quel genre de musique écoutes-tu surtout quand tu travailles ?
→ similar meaning, but can suggest “especially/above all when you work.”

Both are correct, and in casual speech, surtout is very common.

What’s the difference between quand tu travailles, lorsque tu travailles, and pendant que tu travailles?

All three refer to time, but with slight differences in usage:

quand tu travailles
- Very common, neutral.
- Can mean “when you work” in general, or “whenever you’re working”.
lorsque tu travailles
- More formal/ literary, similar meaning to quand.
- Often used in written or more careful speech.
pendant que tu travailles
- Emphasizes “during the time that you are working”.
- Focuses more on simultaneity.

In this sentence, quand tu travailles is the most natural everyday choice.

How would the sentence change if I wanted to use vous instead of tu?

You need to change both the subject pronoun and the verb form:

Quel genre de musique écoutez-vous principalement quand vous travaillez ?

If you keep inversion, remember:

écoutes-tu → informal tu form
écoutez-vous → formal vous form (singular or plural)

With est-ce que:

Quel genre de musique est-ce que vous écoutez principalement quand vous travaillez ?

Does quand tu travailles mean “when you work (in general)” or “when you are working (right now)”?

French present tense often covers both English simple present and present continuous. So:

quand tu travailles can mean:
- “when you work (as a habit, generally)”
- or “when you are working (whenever you happen to be working)”

Context usually clarifies that this sentence is about a habit:
What kind of music do you mainly listen to when you work (as a general habit)?

Is it possible to start the sentence with Quand tu travailles instead?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct and often stylistically nice:

Quand tu travailles, quel genre de musique écoutes-tu principalement ?

The meaning doesn’t change; you just put emphasis first on the time situation (when you work). The comma is usually written in this order.