Breakdown of Lesquels de ces outils veux-tu prêter à ton père demain ?
Questions & Answers about Lesquels de ces outils veux-tu prêter à ton père demain ?
Why is lesquels used here?
Lesquels means which ones and is an interrogative pronoun. It stands in for the noun instead of repeating it.
It has to match the noun it refers to:
- lequel = which one? (masculine singular)
- laquelle = which one? (feminine singular)
- lesquels = which ones? (masculine plural)
- lesquelles = which ones? (feminine plural)
Here it refers to outils, which is masculine plural, so lesquels is the correct form.
Why not say quels outils instead of lesquels de ces outils?
You can say Quels outils veux-tu prêter à ton père demain ? That is also correct.
The difference is this:
- quels is a determiner: it goes directly before a noun
→ quels outils - lesquels is a pronoun: it replaces the noun
→ lesquels
So:
- Quels outils... ? = Which tools... ?
- Lesquels... ? = Which ones... ?
What you cannot say is lesquels outils, because lesquels does not directly go before a noun.
Why is there de in lesquels de ces outils?
Why is the question written as veux-tu instead of tu veux?
This is inversion, a standard French way to form a question.
Normal statement order:
Question with inversion:
- Veux-tu prêter... ? = Do you want to lend...?
English often uses do in questions, but French does not. Instead, French often changes the order of the verb and subject pronoun.
So:
- tu veux = statement order
- veux-tu = question order
Why is there a hyphen in veux-tu?
In French inversion, the verb and the subject pronoun are linked with a hyphen.
So you write:
- veux-tu
- aime-t-il
- peut-elle
The hyphen is required in this structure.
Why is there no extra t in veux-tu?
Why does prêter use à before ton père?
What is the difference between prêter and emprunter?
This is a very common point for English speakers.
- prêter = to lend
- emprunter = to borrow
They describe the same situation from opposite sides.
Examples:
- Tu prêtes un outil à ton père.
= You lend a tool to your father. - Ton père emprunte un outil.
= Your father borrows a tool.
So in your sentence, the subject is the person giving the tools, which is why prêter is used.
Why is it ton père and not ta père?
Because père is a masculine singular noun, so the correct possessive adjective is ton.
French possessive adjectives agree with the thing possessed, not with the owner.
So:
- ton père = your father
- ta mère = your mother
- tes parents = your parents
Why not au père instead of à ton père?
Does demain have to be at the end?
No, but the end is a very natural place for it.
In the original sentence, demain comes last because that is a normal, neutral position for a time adverb.
You could also say:
That puts more emphasis on tomorrow.
So the original order is not the only possible one, but it is very natural.
Is this a formal way to ask the question?
It is standard and perfectly correct. Because it uses inversion, it sounds a bit more careful or written than very casual everyday speech.
A native speaker might also say:
- Tu veux prêter lesquels de ces outils à ton père demain ?
- Lesquels de ces outils est-ce que tu veux prêter à ton père demain ?
All three are correct, but they have slightly different levels of formality:
- inversion = more formal/standard
- est-ce que = neutral
- intonation only = more casual
How is lesquels pronounced?
A rough English-friendly pronunciation is lay-KELL.
A few useful notes:
In the whole phrase ces outils, there is a liaison:
- ces outils sounds roughly like say-zoo-tee
So part of the sentence sounds approximately like:
- lay-KELL duh say-zoo-tee
This is only an approximation, but it is a helpful starting point.
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