How to say "What do you think of it"?

[Mike Fontenot]

I THINK I can say

<< Qu'est que vous en pensez? >>

to mean

"What do you think of it?"

or

"What do you think of that?".

But can I use the shorter form

<< Qu'en pensez vous? >>

to mean the same thing? That SEEMS to be OK gramatically, but I'm
wondering if the

"Qu'en"

would be confused with the word

"Quand",

which sounds exactly the same (I think), but would not mean the same
thing at all.
--
Mike Fontenot

[Pierre Hallet]

Mike Fontenot :

>I THINK I can say
> << Qu'est que vous en pensez? >>
> to mean
> "What do you think of it?"

More exactly, « qu'est-ce que vous en pensez ? ».

> But can I use the shorter form
> << Qu'en pensez vous? >>

Written « qu'en pensez-vous ? », with a hyphen.

> to mean the same thing? That SEEMS to be OK
> gramatically,

It is. That's perfect French, and widely used.

> but I'm wondering if the
> "Qu'en"
> would be confused with the word
> "Quand",
> which sounds exactly the same (I think),

It does.

> but would not mean the same thing at all.

Sure, it would mean "when do you think?", hardly
something one would say, so there's no confusion
despite the identical sound.

The second form is a bit more formal, and is the
preferred form in written French. The first form
is frequent in spoken French.

Attention : "what do you think of *that*?", with
the last word emphasised, is :

« Qu'est-ce que vous pensez de *ça* ? »
or
« Que pensez-vous de *ça* ? »

but *not*

« Qu'est-ce que vous *en* pensez ? »
nor
« Qu'*en* pensez-vous ? »

If you tried to use this last form in spoken French,
then it would probably be understood as « quand ». ;-)

Pierre Hallet (Brussels, Belgium)

[Mike Fontenot]

On 02/09/2011 02:50 PM, Pierre Hallet wrote:
>[...]

Thanks very much for your reply, Pierre ... it was very informative.

And sorry for those two errors ... I KNOW better, but I got sloppy.

--
Mike Fontenot

[Loki Harfagr]

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:50:29 +0100, Pierre Hallet did cat :

> Mike Fontenot :
>
>>I THINK I can say
>> << Qu'est que vous en pensez? >>
>> to mean
>> "What do you think of it?"
>
> More exactly, « qu'est-ce que vous en pensez ? ».
>
>> But can I use the shorter form
>> << Qu'en pensez vous? >>
>
> Written « qu'en pensez-vous ? », with a hyphen.
>
>> to mean the same thing? That SEEMS to be OK gramatically,
>
> It is. That's perfect French, and widely used.

I do agree, and it is the best form, there are other possible
lesser forms, for instance:

Qu'en dites-vous / Qu'en dis-tu (frequent)
Que vous en semble-t-il / Que t'en sembles (old and rare)

and, of course, depending on the context(s) (lexical and societal)
these forms will be out of place ;-)

>
>> but I'm wondering if the
>> "Qu'en"
>> would be confused with the word
>> "Quand",
>> which sounds exactly the same (I think),
>
> It does.
>
>> but would not mean the same thing at all.
>
> Sure, it would mean "when do you think?", hardly something one would
> say, so there's no confusion despite the identical sound.

strangely, I see this incorrect form quite a lot (and more and more) in
many emails (related to IT work) and although at first I thought
it was funny, then found it could have been an interesting lapsus
it is beginning to annoy me to read it that often by now.
Then, I'd relax a bit as I believe it also is related to the
conditions in which it appears: stressed cases at work, quick&dirty email
replies, one-armed typing while other ear and arm is talking different
nonsense on the phone... Well, *modern* (that is, 19th century slavery
feudalism masquerading behind econoralism) work seems to bring on
its share in the market of lapsus ;-)

[Mike Fontenot]

Thanks for both responses ... very informative.

(Sorry for the belated thanks ... I haven't checked newsgroups in quite
a while.)