Grammar: Questions
a) Questions
Question words:
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What
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Qué
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Where
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Dónde
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When
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Cuándo
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Why
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Por qué
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Who
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Quién
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How
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Cómo
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Formation of questions using question words:
Question word + auxiliary verb + subject + bare infinitive (without to)
Examples:
- What do you eat for breakfast?
- Where do they live?
- Why do we need to go to school?
- Why does he play football?
The auxiliary "do / does" changes to "did" when asking a question in the past.
- Where did you live?
We do not use the auxiliary "do / does / did" in questions if "who / what / which" is the subject of the sentence.
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Who - object
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Who - subject
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Amanda spoke to somebody
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Somebody spoke to Amanda
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We use "who" when we are referring to people. We use "what" or which when we are referring to things or places.
More examples with "who / what / which" as the subject:
- Who wants to play tennis? (Not - who does want)
- Which computer is the best? (Not - which computer does be)
Questions without question words:
We usually make a question by changing the word order in a sentence. We put the first auxiliary verb before the subject:
Sentence: We will go swimming tomorrow
Question: Will we go swimming tomorrow?
Sentence: I have been working hard
Question: Have you been working hard?
b) Answering questions
When answering a question you usually use the bare infinitive:
- Where do you live? I live in London
- Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yes, I have one brother
However, when the question does not require any specific information and a simple yes or no answer, we use the auxiliary verb as the answer.
- Does he enjoy his job? Yes, he does
- Do you play the trumpet? Yes, I do