qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ?
To ask what happened in French, say qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? You use it when you want someone to explain an event or a situation that has already occurred.
qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? is the common, all purpose question. To ask someone to tell you the story, say Tu peux me raconter ce qui s'est passé ? to a friend or Pouvez-vous me raconter ce qui s'est passé ? to someone you address formally. Pourriez-vous m'expliquer ce qui s'est déroulé ? is a formal way to ask someone to explain what took place.
Which one should you use?
Que s'est-il passé ? asks the same thing in a more formal, inverted word order. qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? works because the thing that happened is the subject of the sentence. When the what is the object, as in what did you do, French builds the question differently.
How does it change in a sentence?
The question is in the passé composé, the tense French uses for a completed event in the past.
Did you know?
- In highly formal or literary contexts, French uses the word déroulé instead of passé. This comes from the verb dérouler, which literally means 'to unroll', as if a story were a scroll being opened.
- The word qui in this phrase, which functions as 'what', actually shares its roots with the Latin 'quī', though some linguists suggest an even older, onomatopoeic connection to how sounds are made.
- While qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? is the standard question, French speakers often shorten this in casual speech to just il s'est passé quoi ? by moving the 'what' to the end.
Examples in context
- Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ici ?What happened here?
Example conversation
Emma and Nathan are standing in front of a broken window.
- EmmaOh non ! Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ?Oh no! What happened?
- NathanJe ne sais pas, Emma.I don't know, Emma.
- EmmaEst-ce que tu as vu quelqu'un ?Did you see someone?
- NathanNon, je n'ai rien vu du tout.No, I didn't see anything at all.
Sources
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries qui, CC BY-SA 4.0.
