Question forms

Question forms

Do you know how to make questions? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how questions are made.

Is he a teacher?
Does she eat meat?
When did you get here?
How much does a train ticket cost?

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1

Question forms: Grammar test 1

Read the explanation to learn more.

Grammar explanation

To make questions, we often put the verb before the subject. This is called inversion.

Affirmative Question
I am late. Am I late?
I can help. Can I help?
She is sleeping. Is she sleeping?
We have met before. Have we met before?

If there is a question word (why, what, where, how, etc.), it goes before the verb.

Question Question with question word
Are you late? Why are you late?
Was she there? When was she there?
Can I help? How can I help?
Have we met before? Where have we met before?

This is true for sentences with be, sentences that have auxiliary verbs (e.g. They are waiting. She has finished.) and sentences with modal verbs (can, will, should, might, etc.).

Questions in the present simple and past simple

For other verbs in the present simple, we use the auxiliary verb do/does in the question.

Affirmative Question Question with question word
You work at home.   Do you work at home? Where do you work?
It costs £10.  Does it cost £10? How much does it cost?

We use the auxiliary verb did in the past simple.

Affirmative Question Question with question word
She went home.  Did she go home? Where did she go?
They went to the cinema.  Did they go to the cinema? Where did they go?

Subject questions

In some questions, who or what is the subject of the verb. There is no inversion of subject and verb in these questions.

Who broke the window?
Who is knocking on the door?

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2

Question forms: Grammar test 2

Average: 4.3 (75 votes)
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Submitted by a1990 on Sat, 25/07/2020 - 18:50

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where do you live? Do you have kids? Does she work? How much does it coast? present simple: Do, Does He, she, it - Does I , you, we, they. -Do Past simple --- Did Did you visit Paris?

Submitted by EnglishIsChildsPlay on Wed, 17/06/2020 - 00:35

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Can you explain to me how to use whom in a question?

Hello EnglishIsChildsPlay,

In modern English whom is very rare and is used mainly when it directly follows a preposition (when who cannot be used). This is also true in question forms:

To whom did you give it? [not To who...]

 

The equivalent question using who would put the preposition at the end:

Who did you give it to?

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Dilnoza Sulaymonova on Fri, 12/06/2020 - 11:58

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Hello. Thanks for helpful information

Submitted by Masas on Wed, 06/05/2020 - 22:28

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Hello ! I am not understand the Subject questions. What is different between first and second question?
Profile picture for user Kirk Moore

Submitted by Kirk Moore on Thu, 07/05/2020 - 06:53

In reply to by Masas

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Hello Masas

In the sentence 'Who broke the window?', the subject of the verb 'broke' is 'Who'. Since the question word 'who' is also the subject of the verb, the verb goes in the regular past simple form ('broke'). This is a subject question.

In the sentence 'What did you break?', the subject of the verb is not 'What' but instead 'you'. Since the question word 'What' is not the subject, the verb goes in the question form 'did break': 'What did you break?'. This is not a subject question, since the question word and the subject of the verb are different.

I hope this helps.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Dimas wicaksono on Sun, 17/05/2020 - 10:12

In reply to by Masas

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First question, the word "broke" shows us that an action was in the past, not in the present. Second question, "is knocking" shows us that an action is happening.
Profile picture for user Peter M.

Submitted by Peter M. on Mon, 18/05/2020 - 07:28

In reply to by Masas

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Hello Masas,

Subject and object questions ask about different things. Subject questions ask abotu the subject (the doer of the action) and object questions ask about the object (the thing the action is done to).

 

For example, look at this sentence:

Paul bought a car.

In this sentence the subject is Paul and the object is a car.

> A subject question asks about Paul: Who bought a car?

> An object question asks about the car: What did Paul buy?

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team