Similar to question tags, you can use a negative question to confirm something you believe to be true. The question word (what, ...) always comes first! Your father isn’t working today. But don’t worry, there’s a way you can sound more polite and friendly. So if the verb in the sentence is positive (e.g. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. Is she a nice girl? However, sometimes a direct question may sound too blunt or unfriendly, especially if you’re asking someone for help or when you don’t know the person well. If there is a question word (why, what, where, how, etc. As can be seen, the structure is very … Can you swim? It’s simple: just attach a phrase like “Could you please tell me…” or “Do you know…” before the direct question. This type of question is also made up of two parts, where the first part … Now we need to restructure the sentence like this: Notice how the subject also has to get moved in between the auxiliary verb and main verb for this type of sentence. Questions are everywhere in English pop culture. Nina and Thomas play the violin. There are 18 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. If the sentence has an auxiliary or modal verb, that’s the one you’ll need to move. With some practice and patience, you will be asking all kinds of questions in English before you know it! Another option would be to say, “The dining room closes at 9:00pm, doesn’t it?”. Language Focus: An explanation of how to form Yes/No questions in English Grammar Worksheet : yes-no-questions-worksheet-esl.docx (scroll down to study the exercises online) Many students are good at answering questions, but poor at making their own questions … You can also form a question just by changing the tone of your voice to give a regular sentence the sound of question. For an in-depth guide to five W questions with examples, see this lecture from Georgia State University. FluentU is a fun tool to hear how real English speakers form and use questions. Fortunately, we can use those same sentence-building skills to form questions in English, too. Write out a basic sentence in English. When we want to be more polite we often use indirect question forms. (Download). Or, if you are talking about more than 1 person who is not present, you could ask, “Bill and John are meeting us for drinks later, aren’t they?” or “Steve and Jennifer want to order a pizza tonight, don’t they?”, If you are talking about a single person, you could say, “She is going with us to the zoo tomorrow, isn’t she?”. The next time you have a burning question for an English speaker, you’ll know how to ask it! (“Can you feel the love tonight?”), You see them in movie titles. (Literally: To … Verb contractions are usually used in negative questions. Easily create surveys and polls to collect customer feedback, measure employee satisfaction, and organize team events. You can find the tests at the bottom of the page. can take anywhere. Questions. Now, you try it! (Information questions begin with a question word like ‘who’ or ‘what’ and then the helping verb.. T he subject comes after the helping verb. For example, you might ask, “You are coming to dinner with me, aren’t you?” or “You want to go to the Chinese restaurant, don’t you?” if you are speaking directly to someone. Don’t worry – I’m going to teach you a simple … (Notice the new form of “to play” to accommodate the new structure.). If we want to ask a question in English, the order is QWASM: Question word, Auxiliary verb, Subject, Main verb. They ask the same as direct questions but are considered more formal. Nathan is playing basketball in the park. Yes/No questions are the most basic type of question. Questions? We know ads can be annoying, but they’re what allow us to make all of wikiHow available for free. We usually form wh- questions with wh- + an auxiliary verb (be, do or have) + subject + main verb or with wh- + a modal verb + subject + main verb: Without an auxiliary verb Learn and practise all the question forms and question words in English, and find out about the most common mistakes. You could also ask, “Who will pick me up to go to the airport tomorrow?” to find out the name of the person. Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you FluentU also keeps track of your learning, then suggests videos and examples perfect for you. The students are visiting the museum. Every day at wikiHow, we work hard to give you access to instructions and information that will help you live a better life, whether it's keeping you safer, healthier, or improving your well-being. The sentence can be anything you like, as long as it is not too complicated. If the sentence is “Kyle played soccer yesterday,” turn the statement into a question by adding “Did” to the beginning and dropping the “-ed” off of the verb. Look at these statements: We make Yes/No questions by putting the first part of the verb in front of the subject: Active Or Passive Form For 'Start'? You just replace the subject with a wh- word. Let’s look at a few more inversions to form yes/no questions: The boat is sinking. In the direct question, the verb “is” comes before the subject “bookstore.” But in the indirect question, the verb is moved to the end. The first thing to remember is that there are two main kinds, 'yes / no' and 'wh': The 'yes / no' kind need the answer 'yes' or 'no'. This is another good situation to use an indirect question. But there are many different types of questions in English grammar, each with its own rules. For these questions, we’ll need to replace part of the sentence with a wh- word. These exercises will have you create the types of questions we’ll cover below in several different tenses. Adam walks to class on Tuesdays. Good luck! FluentU is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Tom helped in the garden.Who helped in the garden? Examples: 1. George Grow was the editor. (to ask about the way things happen or are done), How many? ¿Dónde está la biblioteca? Be sure to use the correct tense and form, for example, “did” if the sentence is in the past tense. Again, let’s start with a basic sentence. The “five Ws” are the question words who, what, when, where and why. 1. But can you make your own sentences in English? Questions. Generally, just add a question word/phrase to the beginning of a yes/no question. → Did Nina play the violin? For an in-depth guide to five W questions with examples, see this lecture from Georgia State University. Please check your email for further instructions. Disjunctive or Tag Questions. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe, Sign up for our weekly blog newsletter for a chance to win a free FluentU Plus subscription (value $240), Get regular language learning tips, resources and updates, starting with the "Complete Guide to Foreign Language Immersion" e-book. Asking Yes/No Questions In the example below, you expected him to call back soon and you’re surprised he hasn’t. → Does Nina play the violin? Please help us continue to provide you with our trusted how-to guides and videos for free by whitelisting wikiHow on your ad blocker. To form a tag question, you simply add the question tag using the opposite form of the verb/auxiliary or modal verb used in the sentence. Must wego to the cinema tonight? To change this sentence into a question, simply move the verb to the beginning. What is the time? Asking questions in English – direct questions There are four main categories of direct questions, depending on the kind of answer you expect: Yes/No questions, WH questions, alternative questions and tag questions. You could also ask someone, “Where are you from?” as part of a conversation. You may already recognize English questions when you see them. If you’re not asking about the subject, there’ll be some word order inversion. Use an indirect question instead. Once you’ve had more practice turning basic sentences into questions, you can skip the first step of starting with a sentence and go directly to forming the question. Asking “Five W” Questions In Yes-No questions (questions where the answer is yes or no), there is no Question Word. T he main verb follows the subject, and the rest of the sentence follows it.. Second, questions almost always need a helping verb along with the main verb. In English, “must” is used when we are talking about obligations. Last Updated: March 29, 2019 → The students are visiting the museum, aren’t they? You hear them in songs. It’s been two hours. Microsoft Forms automatically provides charts to visualize your data as you collect responses in real time. Learning how to ask questions in English will take some time and practice. Nina played the violin. Are they happy? In this case the speaker is surprised that something has not happened or is not happening. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning. Question Forms and Reported Speech Word order Normal word order is used in reported questions, that is, the subject comes before the verb, and it is not necessary to use 'do' or 'did': Forming Questions The use of question words and how to ask questions in English. The question would be, “Did Kyle play soccer yesterday? In this post, we’ll show you five essential types of English questions you should know, plus grammar tips to form them correctly. - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary Here’s a very basic example: This is the formula we’ll be using throughout this post—we’ll show you how it’s done depending on the type of question you need. % of people told us that this article helped them. How much? ", In this case, you could just swap the first two words around to make the question "Are we on a family occasion?". So now that you know how to form questions, be sure to go back to the top of this post and click on the exercise links to practice what you’ve learned. If you really can’t stand to see another ad again, then please consider supporting our work with a contribution to wikiHow. It’s used to check or confirm that you’ve understood something correctly. In each question, students are presented with a group of words. Connect the two phrases with the question word or 'if' in the case the question is a yes/no question. They are used as auxiliary verbs for negative statements or simple present questions. So you ask: Didn’t you hear the news? Present Simple Questions. A negative question is a question that contains the word not or a negative verb contraction like didn’t (did not), weren’t (were not), etc. Questions: statement questions ( you’re over 18? ) Below you'll find our forming questions worksheets. The “five Ws” are the question words who , what , when , where and why. For example: You could also use it to confirm whether something you already know or think you know is true. For example, to find out about cost you could ask, “How much does a haircut cost?” or “How much for a hot dog?”, To determine a quantity, you could ask, “How many cookies should I bake?” or “How many people will come to dinner?”. The object is “basketball,” a thing, so our wh- word is what. 10+ Resources for Learning How to Speak English Without an Accent, Learn English through Movies and Film: A Complete Guide, 8 Great Tips to Learn English Through Songs and Music, 9 Awesome Channels to Learn English on YouTube, 10 Best 90′s Sitcoms for English Learners, 12 English Podcasts Every English Learner Should Listen To, 20 Essential American Slang Words for English Learners, 20 Essential English Idioms for Sounding Like a Native. The Meaning Of "Simple" In "Simple Tense Form"? If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn English with real-world videos. Learning English becomes fun and easy when you learn with movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talks. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 22,232 times. Give the full standard question form for these shortened yes/no questions… Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. A tag question is simply a sentence with a question tag at the end. Word order in questions in English Interrogative structures in English How to form correctly ordered questions in English See also : tag questions 1. Amid the current public health and economic crises, when the world is shifting dramatically and we are all learning and adapting to changes in daily life, people need wikiHow more than ever. _____ Practice. We also participate in other affiliate advertising programs for products and services we believe in. How to Form 5 Essential Types of Questions in English Grammar 1. Please consider making a contribution to wikiHow today. Questions with verbs - do, does You could also ask, “How do you cook this?” to get instructions for completing a recipe. To make questions, we often put the verb before the subject. For example, you could ask, “How do you get to the university?” to get directions. Forming questions in English is not always very easy because sometimes we have to change the structure of the sentence. Let’s start with the example sentence we used above. Where is Raul going? Where is the library? The basic formula is below. In some cases, you may also need to add additional words and phrases. For example, you could ask, “Could you please tell me how to get to the airport?” or “Do you know how to get to the airport?”, You could also ask, “Could you please tell me the time?” or “Do you know the time?”, For example, if you want to ask, “Where is the bus stop?” you could say, “Do you know where the bus stop is?”, To find out the time, you could ask, “Could you please tell me what time it is?”, For example, if you want to confirm when you need to head to the airport, you might say to your travel companion, “We need to leave for the airport at 7:00am tomorrow morning, don’t we?”, Or, you might confirm that a friend is picking you up at a certain time by saying, “You will be here to get me at 6:30pm tonight, won’t you?”, For example, if you want to confirm when dinner will be served, you might say, “Dinner is served at 6:30pm.”, To find out where you are meeting up with someone, you could say, “We are meeting at the fountain.”. Auxiliary Verbs in Object Questions. However, just to make things trickier, there are actually other question words in this category too, like “how” and phrases that start with “how.” So you may also hear these referred to as “five W and H” questions or simply “wh-” questions. Forming questions in English can be challenging when you are trying to learn the language! The trick is to form a basic sentence, then invert the word order to create a question. Your support helps wikiHow to create more in-depth illustrated articles and videos and to share our trusted brand of instructional content with millions of people all over the world. It is raining now. Nina plays the violin. We’ll usually need to invert the word order as well, but not always. Since “Nathan” is a person, our wh- word is who. Almost all questions use the same structure. Yes/No questions are the most basic type of question. We’ll replace it with our wh- word. Plural Form=≫Different Meanings? Free with a Google account. Where are the children? For example, if you tap on the word “brought,” then you see this: You can learn any video’s vocabulary with FluentU’s fun quizzes. For example, you could ask, “What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?” or “Which flavor is your favorite?”, Or, you could ask “What do you want to do today?” or “Which museum would you like to visit today?”, For example, you could ask, “Where do you want to meet for lunch?”. A direct question is used to ask for information such as, “Which train goes to Bangkok?” or “How much does this box of oranges cost?” These are the types of questions we just covered above. The object is to put these words in the correct order to form a syntactically correct question. For example, if you just walk up to a stranger and ask, “How do you get to the airport?” they might be taken aback by the directness of the question. This would be a good situation to use an indirect question. Who - asking for a person and animal: object: do, does, did. The sentence can be 1 that includes a form of the verb “to be,” or another simple sentence that expresses what you want to ask a question about. For example, you could ask, “When are we going to the theater?”, You could also ask, “When should I expect you?”. Yes/No questions To form a direct questions with a yes or no answer, we use auxiliary verbs, which are also called helping verbs. music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks. Tap or click on any word to see what it means, learn how to use it, hear it pronounced and more. Keep trying if it doesn’t work out the first time. What can you draw? So you ask: Hasn’t he called back yet? Have you got a dog? “is”), you need the negative version (e.g. In today’s blog post we are going to have a look at the differences in forming questions with “must” and “to have to” How do we make questions with “must”? Notice that we used the contractions “isn’t” instead of “is not” and “aren’t” instead of “are not.” Contractions are usually used in negative tags. Remember, the more you practice, the easier and more familiar they’ll become. All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published, This article was co-authored by our trained team of editors and researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. Questions can be a little difficult in English. Auxiliary verbs are … This article was co-authored by our trained team of editors and researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. We replace “in the park” with where, then move where to the beginning of the sentence: Five W questions can get pretty confusing and can require lots of practice to master. Here’s a list of common question words in this category and what each is used for: How? Practice involves rewriting sentences. In fact, to create the interrogative form of “must”, all we have to do isinvert the subject and “must” and our interrogative is formed. Depending on the type of question you want to ask, you may need to move words around in the sentence. When you feel ready for a challenge, try the interesting exercises at englisch-hilfen. The basic formula is below. Do Does questions are common in English. Instead of beginning with the subject, questions begin with a helping verb. All tenses in English use auxiliary verbs. Start by writing a simple sentence in English. However, you can improve your ability to answer essay questions by learning how to understand the questions, form an answer, and stay focused. WH-questions are questions starting with WH-words including: what, when, where, who, whom, which, whose, why and how.Question words are used to ask about specific qualities, times, places, people and so on. [Auxiliary verb] + [subject] + not + [main verb] + [other information]? Sally won the marathon. 2. Let’s say we wanted to ask about the object in this sentence. Few, Tag Questions? How often? Write a question for "We are on a family occasion. Questions with be as the main verb ¿Adónde va Raúl? For example, you could ask, “Who is the manager?” if you need to know who is in charge of a business. → Your father isn’t working today, is he? All Rights Reserved. Questions with am - is - are - can - must - have got. Thanks for subscribing! Forming questions in English can be confusing. You can use them to ask for a simple yes or no answer. [Negative verb contraction] + [subject] + [main verb] + [other information]? Choose from a variety of pre-made themes or create your own. You can use them to ask for a simple... 2. When you’re asking about the subject (in this case, “Nathan”) forming a sentence is pretty easy. A negative question can also show your surprise that something you expect to happen hasn’t happened yet. FluentU brings English to life with real-world videos. Alice Bryant wrote this story for Learning English. 3. You’ll need to put “do” or “does” at the beginning of the question. The same goes for a question about directions. How many stickers have you got? We can also use where to ask about the location. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/6\/65\/Form-a-Question-in-English-Step-1.jpg\/v4-460px-Form-a-Question-in-English-Step-1.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/6\/65\/Form-a-Question-in-English-Step-1.jpg\/aid10334945-v4-728px-Form-a-Question-in-English-Step-1.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"