 4. Making Questions in English In many languages, questions are easy to make. In English, the process is quite complex. For instance, in some languages, you just have to add a question particle to the end of the sentence. For example, in some languages, you might say, for a statement, you are a student. And to make a question, you'd say something like, you are a student. That's all. English is not that simple. In English, you need to change the word order and intonation. Let's look at the process step by step. Let's start with the easy ones. For very simple sentences, just switch the subject and verb. For example, for the statement, they are students. You make the question, are they students? Statement, he is hungry. Question, is he hungry? Statement, Sally is in New York. Question, is Sally in New York? Notice that with the question, my intonation goes up at the end. Of the question. For these types. What if there's more than one verb? If there's more than one verb, switch only the first verb with the subject. Leave the other verbs alone. For example, Carrie is working now. Statement, is Carrie working now? Question, Elise can play the piano. Can Elise play the piano? So the first tip in making questions is to count the verbs. If there's more than one verb, switch the first verb and the subject. For example, the fox was jumping over the fence. How many verbs do we have here? Was jumping, we have two verbs. So we're just going to switch the first verb and the subject. Leave the second verb in the place that it's in. Was the fox jumping over the fence? Next, they have been working for a long time. How many verbs here? Three, have been working. We need to switch only the first verb and the subject. Have they been working for a long time? The other two verbs remain in the same position. Now, here's where it gets complicated. What if there's only one verb? Well, it depends on what the verb is. If the verb is a form of B, is, are, am, was, or were, then follow the first rule. Just switch the places of the subject and verb. For example, Dinah is in the kitchen. Is Dinah in the kitchen? What if the verb is not B? What if it's another verb? For example, they like pizza. Do you want to know? Keep listening. If there's only one verb and that verb is not a form of B, add do to the beginning of the sentence. Leave the main verb in the same place. For example, those people like cookies. Add do. Do those people like cookies? Cheetahs run fast. Add do to the beginning of the question. Do cheetahs run fast? Wait, it gets more complex than that. Some English verbs have extra parts and sometimes you need to separate those parts. For example, Mary goes to school every day. The verb goes has two parts, go plus es. In English, the extra parts are assigned to the first verb in the sentence. So the first verb in the sentence, Mary goes to school every day. The only verb is goes. So that's where the s-e-s is. It's part of the first verb. Now, what happens when we make a question? Remember how we add do to the beginning of a question? Do Mary goes to school every day? That's not yet right. We're not finished yet. So first we add do, then we need to move the es to the beginning of the question. So we take the es off of goes and put it on to the first verb in the sentence, which is does. So it becomes does Mary go to school every day? That's correct now. You see what happened? The es moved to do to form the word does. Only verbs in the third person's singular carry an s or es. In fact, most of them carry only an s. And the s is what moves to the beginning of the question. Let's look at some statements. Larry walks two miles every day. Sherry loves Spanish wine. Gary lives in Indiana. Just remember that when you move the s to do, the result is does. Let's look at some examples of questions now. Does Larry walk two miles every day? The s comes off of walks and goes on to does. Does Larry walk two miles every day? Next, does Sherry love Spanish wine? Does Gary live in Indiana? See how the s moved from the main verb to the question word does. A special verb is have. The word has is actually a merger of have plus s. When you separate them, have remains and the s is moved to the beginning of the question. For example, Barry has a new bicycle. If we make a question we start with do, change it to does. Does Barry have a new bicycle? Some people in England might use have as a single verb like be for certain questions. For example, you have a car. They might say have you a car? This is not common in American English. I hope you're not confused. There's more. Main verbs in the past tense have two parts as well. However, sometimes those parts are hidden within the verb itself. For example, we talked for two hours. This one is easy to see. Talk plus ed, which is the past tense ending, makes it into the word talked. They worked all day. We have work the main verb plus the ed, past tense ending. However, in irregular verbs, it kind of merges together. The past tense and the main verb may form a different word or a new word. For example, Terry sang a beautiful song. What we have here is sing the main verb plus the past tense. And the past tense is merged into the regular verb or to the verb. Terry sang a beautiful song. Harry told his mother a lie. We have tell the main verb plus past tense and it becomes told. The last one is a little bit different. Jerry cut his finger yesterday. We have cut plus the past tense and in this case it doesn't change its form. It's still cut in the past tense. Now, why is this important to know? This is important because when you make questions in the past tense, you need to separate the main verb from its past component. The past tense is assigned to do the first word in the question. For example, they talked for an hour. Do they talk for an hour? Notice that we put do at the beginning of the sentence and we need to move the ed to the do. So we're not finished yet. We need to put the past marker on to do. So do plus the past tense is did. Did they talk for an hour? Now it's correct. Let's look at the next one. Terry sang a beautiful song. With the irregular verb here, we have sing plus the past tense sing. We're going to separate them and we'll have the past tense going to did and the main verb sing remaining in the position. Did Terry sing a beautiful song? Let's do a quick review. To change sentences into questions, first count the verbs. If there are two or more verbs, just switch the first verb and the subject. Perry will play football. Will Perry play football? Count the verbs, there are two of them. Switch the first and second verb. If there is only one verb and the verb is a form of B, then just switch the verb and the subject. Jenny is a psychologist. If the verb is not B, add do and move the past tense to the beginning of the question. For example, Penny likes old coins. We're going to move the S to the beginning, so it goes, does Penny like old coins? Benny called his mom. We're going to move the past tense to the do, so it becomes did Penny call his mom? Did Benny call his mom? Kenny left last night. This is an irregular past tense verb, so it's kind of merged into one word. We're going to separate it here so it becomes did Kenny leave last night? These types of questions are called yes-no questions. That's because the answer to these questions is either yes or no. There are other types. Let's look at one more type for now, WH or information questions. After you have constructed a yes-no question, add a question word to the beginning. Most question words, but not all, begin with WH. For example, who is a question about a person? What is a question about a thing or activity? When is a question about time? Where is a question about location? Why is a question about purpose or reason? How is a question about manner? Let's look at some examples. Denny ate dinner at 9 o'clock. First let's make it into a yes-no question. Did Denny eat dinner at 9 o'clock? That's okay as a yes-no question. Now we're going to add the WH word to the beginning of the sentence before did. When did Denny eat dinner? We're asking about time. Where did Denny eat? What did Denny eat for dinner? Who did Denny eat dinner with? Why did Denny eat so late? How did Denny eat his dinner? So we use the WH words to ask for more information. Put them at the beginning of the question before do or did or does. Let's practice adding WH words to the following question. Here's the question. Did you go somewhere last week? The answer would be yes, I went to Florida. Where did you go? I went to Jacksonville. See if you can make the rest of the questions using these question words. Take a minute and make the questions on your own. You can also make the answers. But be careful, for the answer you need to put the verb back together. For example, did he go? That's go plus the past tense. So you have to put those back together and it becomes went. Yes, he went to Florida. Feel free to stop the video if you'd like more time to make some questions. Sample answers. Question, did you go somewhere last week? Answer, yes, I went to Florida. Where did you go? I went to Jacksonville. When did you go? I went on Friday. How did you go? I went by bus. Who did you go with? I went with Denny. Why did you go? I went there for vacation. What did you do there? I visited my uncle. There's some more rules with WH questions but we'll save them for later. Other WH questions include what time, how many, how much, how long, how far, how old, what kind, which, whom. We'll talk about these in another video. These are just two types of questions in English. Yes, no questions and WH questions. There are still more English questions to learn about. Check out our other videos for more details. Practice. Close your eyes. Listen as I read Renny's story. Then make some questions about him and his family. This is for your practice. Okay, ready to listen? Renny is a dentist. He lives in Denver, Colorado. He only works on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he plays golf. He loves his family a lot. Every Saturday they go to the Rocky Mountains. In the winter they ski and in the summer they swim in the lake. Last year Renny and his family took a trip to California. While there they visited their grandparents in San Diego. They also went to the beach and swam in the ocean. Then they drove to Disneyland and saw Mickey Mouse and other famous characters. They had a wonderful time. Next year the whole family will travel to Washington, D.C. They will stop to visit the museums and tour the White House. Then they will stop in Virginia to see the historical sites in Williamsburg and Jamestown. They also plan to drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains and see the forest and wildlife. Okay, now it's your turn to make some questions about the story. Let's look at some examples. Practice making these questions. Feel free to go back and read this story again. Here are some sample questions. Is Renny a doctor? No, he's a dentist. Where does he live? He lives in Colorado. When did his family go to California? How did they? What will they? Think of your own questions. This is for you to practice. Take as much time as you need. Feel free to pause the video if you'd like more time. Hope that was helpful. Remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video. And don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Thanks for watching. If you have ideas for our next video, please contact us at the link below. This video was brought to you by the following English learning websites.