qu'est que tu fais translation

Hi, i was reading this French text and came across this phrase (??). I researched online and only found it was the title of a song. I was wondering if anyone would knoow what it means though. I don't know how to go about translating it, so anyone's help would be great, thanks!

Moderator note: multiple threads merged to create this one

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2008

Is that all it means? It seems rather complicated :S I thought "What's that?" would be something like, qu'est-ce que c'est?...

egueule: I see what you mean. Yeah, I think that might fit into what the text was about...
The context was just about the femininity/masculinity of French nouns. I just wasn't quite sure what the phrase was refering to.

Oh, well unfortunately I can't remember the sentence that came before AND after this, so i'll have to find that piece of paper again and check. So far, the answers have been "What's that?", i'm guessing this is probably just another version of saying, "Qu'est-ce que c'est?". I'll wait for more natives to confirm this.

It seems to me that que is a relative pronoun and I think it is the same in both cases.

Last edited by a moderator: May 29, 2014

Football Taxis

i'll just add that i thought about this too much, and simply accept it as idiomatic. but i'd like to propose a sort of different way of thinking about that last "que":

it's almost a comma.

"what is it, that?"
"qu'est-ce que c'est, ça?"

but i just shake my head and end up with liking much better the less proper phrase, "c'est quoi ça."

Cath.S.

I can't identify the grammatical function (the part of speech) for que.

Tu aurais pu formuler ta question ainsi : « Qu'est-ce que c'est que ce "que" là ? » . :eek:
En revanche, je ne crois pas que l'on décompose qu'est-ce que, qui est considéré comme une locution figée et donc non analysable.
Ce qui ne répond pas vraiment à ta/la question, j'en ai bien conscience.

Last edited by a moderator: May 29, 2014

"Qu'est-ce que c'est" means "what is it". If you want to say "what is THAT", you need to use ça, but in order to insert it you need "que". It means "that", as in "what is it that it is".

Which is why just about everyone speaking (not writing) would just say something like "c'est quoi ça?"

geostan

One may not say: qu'est ce c'est ca?

The only possibilities are the ones given above.

Cheers!

Last edited by a moderator: May 29, 2014

Maître Capello

No, it just means, What is that?

CarlosRapido

Sorry to revive an old post - seems to me that there is a similarly convoluted English saying with pretty much the same meaning; "What is that there thingy?"