Breakdown of Comment allez-vous ?
comment allez-vous
how are you? (formal)
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Questions & Answers about Comment allez-vous ?
Why is it allez-vous and not just vous allez?
In this sentence, French is using inversion, a common way to form a formal question.
So allez-vous is the verb and subject pronoun switched around. This is more formal than everyday spoken French, where people often prefer:
- Vous allez bien ?
- Comment vous allez ? (common in speech, though less formal than inversion)
In Comment allez-vous ?, inversion makes the sentence sound polite and standard.
What does vous mean here?
Vous is the subject pronoun meaning you, but it has two main uses in French:
- formal singular you — when speaking politely to one person
- plural you — when speaking to more than one person
So Comment allez-vous ? can mean:
- How are you? (to one person, politely)
- How are you all? / How are you? (to several people)
French distinguishes between informal tu and formal/plural vous, unlike modern English.
Why is there a hyphen in allez-vous?