Paul demande : « Qui est-ce ? »

Demande is the third-person singular present tense of demander.

So:

• Paul demande = Paul asks / Paul is asking

In French, the present tense often covers both the English simple present and present progressive, depending on context.

French often uses demander when someone is asking a question.

• dire = to say
• demander = to ask

So if Paul introduces a question, demande is the natural choice.

Qui est-ce ? is a standard way to say who is it?

You can think of it as:

• qui = who
• est-ce = is it / is this

But it is best learned as a fixed question pattern rather than translated word by word too literally.

The hyphen links the verb and pronoun in this question pattern.

In French, when a verb and a subject pronoun are inverted in formal question structures, they are usually joined with a hyphen. In est-ce, the elements are tightly connected and function as part of a common interrogative expression.

So:

• est-ce is written with a hyphen
• not est ce

Yes, it is a very common and natural way.

French has several ways to ask questions, and Qui est-ce ? is a standard one. In everyday speech, some speakers may also use less formal alternatives, but Qui est-ce ? is perfectly correct and very useful for learners.

It is commonly pronounced approximately like:

kee ess

More carefully:

• qui → sounds like kee
• est-ce → often sounds like ess

The t in est is not pronounced here, and the whole expression is usually said quite smoothly.

French traditionally uses guillemets: « ... » instead of English-style quotation marks.

So direct speech is often written like this:

• Paul demande : « Qui est-ce ? »

This is just standard French punctuation for quoted speech.

The colon introduces the exact words Paul says.

So the structure is:

• Paul demande : = Paul asks:
• then the direct speech follows: « Qui est-ce ? »

This is a common way to present dialogue or quoted speech in written French.

In standard French typography, a space is usually placed before ?, !, :, and ;.

So French writes:

• Qui est-ce ?

not the English-style:

• Qui est-ce?

This is a punctuation rule, not a pronunciation difference.

Yes.

French present tense can often be translated in more than one way in English:

• Paul asks
• Paul is asking

Both can fit, depending on the context.

Very often, yes.

Qui is the basic French question word for who. In questions, it can refer to a person as the subject or as part of a fixed expression like Qui est-ce ?

So in this sentence, qui is the correct word to ask about a person’s identity.

Yes, absolutely.

Qui est-ce ? is a complete question on its own.
Paul demande : simply tells you who is saying it.

So:

• Qui est-ce ? = a full question
• Paul demande : « Qui est-ce ? » = narration plus the question itself