polite questions

[Fereshteh]

How does one say: 'Would you like to ...' in French?

 

Is it vouliez vous or voudriez vous ?

 

 

[stu harris]

It's voulez-vous. Voudriez-vous is grammatically correct but badly outdated. You might see it in literature but you'd never hear it in conversation.

[Fereshteh]

Thanks. That's the trouble with learning French using old literary books; they're better than language books and don't waste your time with stuff like 'le chat est sur la table' but one runs the risk of sounding like Balzac after a lobotomy!

[freebird]

vouliez vous is better to choose .

[Susan Stevens]

If you are asking a close friend would it be vouliez tu

[James H Smith]

Hi Susan
You are using a mis-match 0f subject and conjugation; the verb must agree with the subject (tu).
"Vouliez" is the present-subjunctive tense agreeing with "vous"
"Voulez" is the present-indicative tense agreeing with "vous"
So you must use the 2nd. person singular present-indicative tense agreeing with the subject pronoun "tu".
Then it would be "veux-tu ?"= Do you want...../Would you like.....?
If you wanted to use the present subjunctive it would be "veuilles-tu ?"
Personally, I wouldn't use the pronoun/verb inversion when speaking to a friend; it can sound formal.
I would prefer "tu veux?"

[Susan Stevens]

Hi James
Thank you so much for this.
I sure there will be more questions to come.
Susan (beginner!)

[Neil Coffey]

I think it might be worth adding a couple of clarifications:

- voulez-vous...? (present tense) is usually close to "do you want...?", "would you like...?"
- voudriez-vous...? (the conditional form) is another-- arguably more formal-- alternative close to "would you like...?". There are also other ways of saying this: e.g. désirez-vous...?, souhait(eri)ez-vous...?.
- the tu form equivalent would usually be veux-tu...?
- vouliez-vous...? is the imperfect tense form, and would usually be interpreted as "did you want...?", "were you wanting...?"
- veuilles is the subjunctive tu form, and vouliez as well as being the imperfect form can also be the vous subjunctive form. Unless you really know when you need to use these forms, you can just pretend they don't exist. (Examples would be: que tu veuilles ou non = whether you want to or not; il faut que vous vouliez agir = you need to want to act...)

[Fereshteh]

Thank you Neil; this all makes good sense but now I have another question or two or three. Is there a sense in which the sujunctive could be used in forming a question? Would it possible to say: veuilles tu manger du pain? Or would one have to say veuilles tu que tu manges du pain ? Could you please explain which one if any is/are correct and what would they mean.

[Neil Coffey]

The short answer is no. Subjunctive forms are used for various things, but not for forming questions.

[Fereshteh]

Thanks again for yet another very clear answer.

[Roland Jondeau]

Vouliez est l'imparfait := wanted you to come (et non le subjonctif)
Voudriez est le conditionnel (sous entendu: s'il vous plait): would you come (sous entendu: please)
Would you like to = est-ce que vous aimeriez
On emploie aussi bien le conditionnel avec le tutoiement: Veux-tu encore de la soupe ? (parce que je ne demande pas de service), mais "Voudrais tu me passer du pain (s'il te plait).

[Tammy Slavvi]

I have to disagree with poste you say it is "Voulez-vous" as though perfectly correct may be seen as a bit direct. For instance say a person takes forever to answer you you could say "Voulez-vous bien vous occuper de moi?" Voudriez-vous is more polite and would be fine in most cases.

Tamy