Comment allez-vous ?

In this sentence, French is using inversion, a common way to form a formal question.

• Statement: Vous allez bien.
• Question: Allez-vous bien ?

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.

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.

The hyphen is required in inversion questions in French. When the verb and subject pronoun switch places, they are joined with a hyphen:

• Allez-vous ?
• Avez-vous ?
• Êtes-vous ?

So the hyphen is not optional here. It is part of the standard written form.

Yes, allez comes from aller, which usually means to go. But in the expression Comment allez-vous ?, French uses aller in a broader sense, closer to How are you doing? or How is it going for you?

This is very natural in French. Languages often use verbs differently in greetings, so it does not translate word-for-word in a neat way.

Allez is the second person plural / formal singular form of aller in the present tense.

The present tense forms of aller are:

• je vais
• tu vas
• il / elle / on va
• nous allons
• vous allez
• ils / elles vont

Because the subject is vous, the verb must be allez.

If you are speaking to one friend informally, you would usually use tu instead of vous:

• Comment vas-tu ?

That is the direct informal equivalent.

In everyday speech, people also often say:

• Ça va ?
• Tu vas bien ?

These are very common and often sound more natural in casual conversation than Comment vas-tu ?

Yes, it is generally polite and fairly formal. It is a standard, correct way to ask someone how they are, especially:

• when meeting someone for the first time
• when speaking to someone older
• in professional situations
• when you want to be respectful

In casual spoken French, people often use shorter expressions like Ça va ?

A simple pronunciation guide is:

koh-mahn tah-lay voo

A few important points:

• Comment sounds roughly like koh-mahn
• allez sounds like ah-lay
• vous sounds like voo

There is also a liaison here: the final z in allez is pronounced before vous, so it sounds like alay-zvoo rather than alay voo.

Usually, yes. If someone says Comment allez-vous ?, a polite answer could be:

• Je vais bien, merci. Et vous ? — I’m fine, thank you. And you?
• Très bien, merci. — Very well, thank you.
• Ça va bien, merci. — I’m doing well, thank you.

Using Et vous ? is a natural way to return the question politely.

Yes. Because vous can be plural, you can say Comment allez-vous ? to a group as well.

In that case, it means How are you? addressed to several people. French does not need a separate word like you all in this sentence, although English sometimes adds that for clarity.

They do use it, but in everyday life it may sound a bit more formal or careful than the most common casual options.

Very common alternatives include:

• Ça va ?
• Vous allez bien ?
• Tu vas bien ?

So Comment allez-vous ? is perfectly correct and useful, but it is not always the most casual everyday version.

Comment means how in questions like this. It introduces the question about someone’s state or condition.

Examples:

• Comment ça va ? — How’s it going?
• Comment vas-tu ? — How are you?
• Comment allez-vous ? — How are you?

So comment is the word that asks in what way / how.