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

Try another grammar lesson

Language level

A1 Elementary

A2 Pre-intermediate

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Please help me with the meaning of one single word in a sentence. I am not certain how to understand the word "generous" in the following sentence:

"John's will and testament, which has survived, is a generous document."

Does generous here means "charitable" and "giving" or does it mean "large" and "copious"?

How do you, as a native speaker, understand this?

Thank you for any help.

Hello EliasM,

To be honest I'm not sure as both meanings could apply here. Perhaps seeing the sentence in a broader context would offer more clues as to the author's intention but by itself I would say that the sentence is ambiguous - possibly deliberately so.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hi,

You haven't talked about the verb "Have" in this lesson or it falls into the category "Questions in the present simple and past simple". If I have an affirmative sentence "You have a bike", how do we do the question and Question with question word in the present simple and in the past simple?

Thank you in advance.

Hi Ama1,

That's right, it falls in the same category so the questions are:

Do you/I/we/they have a bike? Does he/she have a bike? (present simple: do/does + subject + have + object)
Did you/I/we/they have a bike? Did he/she have a bike? (past simple: did + subject + have + object)

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

Hello, there。
The first grammar test, no.5 sees got wrong。
because the "children" were plural, it should be like "they"。
so, the auxiliary should use the "Do" instead of "Does".
please, check it out is there got something wrong。

Hi kyazall,

I'll try to help. That's right, "children" is plural and the same as "they". In a present tense sentence, the auxiliary is "do": Do the children go to the park?

However, in question 5, the person says "went" in the next sentence. So, they are talking about the past, not the present. The past form of "do" is "did": Did the children go to the park?

Does that make sense?

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

Thanks, Jonathan R.

That makes sense, but it seems the question has changed. because I saw the answer was "does" last time.

But anyway, thanks for your reply. Thanks for fixing the question. Good luck.

The subject question for "She broke the window" is Who broke the window?

However, we say "Why did she break the window?" or "How did she break the window?"

Can you explain why the tense of the verb changes here.

Thank you.

Hello Waldorf Wonderland,

There is no tense change here. Broke is the past simple form of 'break' and 'did [she] break' is the past simple question form of the same verb.