Paul demande : « Quelle heure est-il ? »

Demande is the verb conjugated in the present tense for il / elle / on.

• demander = to ask
• il demande = he asks

Since Paul is the subject, French uses the third-person singular form:

• Paul demande = Paul asks

The colon introduces the exact words Paul says. In English, we often use a comma or colon before direct speech; French commonly uses a colon here:

• Paul demande : ... = Paul asks: ...

It signals that the words after it are the question Paul is asking.

These are French quotation marks, called guillemets.

French often writes direct speech like this:

• « Quelle heure est-il ? »

English usually uses “ ”, while French traditionally uses « ». Both mark quoted speech, but « » is the standard French style.

Quelle means what in this sentence, but more literally it agrees with heure.

• heure = hour/time and it is a feminine noun
• so French uses the feminine singular form quelle

Compare:

• quel = masculine singular
• quelle = feminine singular
• quels = masculine plural
• quelles = feminine plural

Because heure is feminine singular, the sentence uses quelle heure.

French uses the noun heure (hour/time) in this fixed expression:

• Quelle heure est-il ?

This is simply the standard French way to ask the time. Word-for-word, it looks a bit like:

• Which hour is it?

But idiomatically it means:

• What time is it?

So it is best learned as a set phrase.

This is called inversion, a common formal way to ask questions in French.

• statement: Il est deux heures. = It is two o’clock.
• question: Est-il deux heures ? = Is it two o’clock?

In Quelle heure est-il ?, the verb and subject pronoun are inverted:

• est-il = literally is it

French often uses inversion in written or standard-style questions.

In French, when a verb and subject pronoun are inverted in a question, they are joined with a hyphen.

So:

• est-il
• a-t-il
• sont-ils

The hyphen is required in this structure.

No. In Quelle heure est-il ?, il does not refer to a person. It is an impersonal pronoun.

French often uses il in expressions about:

• time
• weather
• general conditions

Examples:

• Il est trois heures. = It is three o’clock.
• Il pleut. = It is raining.

So here, il is just the normal grammatical subject used when talking about the time.

Because the question is asking generally for the time, not for the hours.

French uses the singular in this expression:

• Quelle heure est-il ?

Even though some answers may contain a plural noun:

• Il est une heure.
• Il est deux heures.

The question itself stays singular.

Yes. It is the standard and very common way to ask What time is it?

You may also hear more casual alternatives in conversation, such as:

• Il est quelle heure ?

But Quelle heure est-il ? is the classic standard form and very useful to know.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

kel ur eh-teel

A bit more carefully:

• Quelle ≈ kel
• heure ≈ ur (with a French vowel, not exactly English ur)
• est-il ≈ eh-teel

In natural speech, it flows together smoothly: Quelle heure est-il ?

In French, h is usually silent. In heure, you do not pronounce an English h sound.

So:

• heure sounds roughly like eur / ur
• not h-our

This is very common in French vocabulary.

You can, but it is better not to rely on the word-for-word version too much.

Roughly:

• Paul = Paul
• demande = asks
• Quelle heure = what time / which hour
• est-il = is it

So a literal version is something like:

• Paul asks: “Which hour is it?”

But the natural English meaning is:

• Paul asks, “What time is it?”

For learning, it is best to remember Quelle heure est-il ? as a complete expression.