Can avez-vous fait mean did you do, have you done since present tense is used with one type in French.

Avez vous fait un service civique = did you do civil service, have you done civil service.

Is it correct and can it mean something else also?

  • 1
    This is not present, it's "Passé composé". "Avoir auxiliary" is in the present tense, while "faire" verb is in the past principle. You French sentence is correct, except for the missing hyphen: should be "Avez-vous fait un service civique". – Laurent S. Oct 21 '20 at 7:50
  • Merci monsoir . . – srijan Sri Oct 21 '20 at 7:51
  • Monsieur instead of monsoir:-)! – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 11:23
  • Merci oui. Je parle un peu francias. – srijan Sri Oct 21 '20 at 11:24
  • T'inquiète (don't worry)! Keep on learning and posting questions in FSE whenever you encounter an issue. – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 11:29

Avez-vous fait?

is the inverted-form of a French question.

It may convey

Did you do and Have you done?

Note the hyphen.

A more colloquial way would be

Vous avez fait (e.g. les devoirs) ? (with rising intonation) or Est-ce que vous avez fait (e.g. les devoirs) ? (with the set turn est-ce que

[See https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/30494/whats-the-correct-answer-to-this-question-tu-ne-vas-pas-%c3%a0-la-piscine/30496#30496 and references therein.]

Vous avez fait is the second person of the plural (or the so-called form of vouvoiement) of the passé composé (present perfect). It is the usual choice when one needs to convey the English present perfect or the simple past.

You take the auxiliary avoir and you conjugated in present and you add the past participle (participe passé) of the verb faire (i.e. fait). Note that there are several verbs that take être as auxiliary verb for the compound tenses construction. Googling the so-called MRS-DR-VANDERTRAMPP mnemonic rule which can be quite helpful when you are a beginner.

There are several past tenses in French. A beginner should learn the three most common ones (Passé composé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait). There are some literary tenses like Passé simple (je fis!) but you should not worry too much about them, at least initially. Thery are only found in books and barely used (if not at all) in oral French.

I hope it is clearer now.

  • I may misunderstand that answer, but "avez-vous fait" is correct, when "vous avez fait ...?" is used at oral, but incorrect, and seems odd when written. – Ouch42 Oct 21 '20 at 12:54
  • @Ouch42 There are three types of Yes/No questions: 1) By turning a statement into a question; 2) By using est-ce que; 3) By changing the order of the words in the sentence. – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 13:22
  • @Ouch42 Il est arrivé. Il est arrivé with rising intonation). Est-ce qu'il est arrivé? Est-il arrivé (inversion; the most formal)? – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 13:23
  • @Ouch42 books.google.com/ngrams/… – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 13:30
  • @Ouch42 See french.stackexchange.com/questions/30494/… – Dimitris Oct 21 '20 at 13:38

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