We normally use DO or DOES to make a question in the simple present tense.
Of course the exceptions are questions with To Be
and modal verbs such as Can, Might, Should, etc.
You speak English.
This is not a question.
This is an affirmative or positive sentence.
How can we change the sentence to make it a question?
We add DO to the beginning.
DO is before the subject, in this case YOU.
Do you speak English?
Another example: They speak Spanish.
How can we change this to a question?
Again, we add DO to the beginning.
Do they speak Spanish?
You see that we use DO before I, you, we and they.
Do I... Do you... Do we... Do they...
But when the question is about HE, SHE or IT,
we use DOES.
Does he... Does she... Does it...
But what comes after the subject?
We have the verb.
It is important to note that the verb is in the base form of the infinitive.
What does this mean?
The infinitive is the original form of the verb before it is conjugated or changed.
In English the infinitive is TO GO, TO WANT, TO LIKE.
For questions we want the base form of the infinitive
which is the infinitive TO GO, TO SPEAK, TO LIVE
but without the TO.
So instead of TO GO it is just GO.
So, Do you go...? Does he go...?
Do you want...? Does he want...?
Let's look at this example again...
You speak English.
To make it a question, we add DO
because it is a question in the simple present tense.
We have you... Do you...
and then we have the base form of the infinitive,
which is SPEAK.
Do you speak English?
Let's look at the next example.
He speaks English.
We add DOES because it's a question referring to HE.
Does he...?
But look, we have SPEAK and not SPEAKS with an S. Why?
Because we use the infinitive TO SPEAK but without the TO at the beginning.
Instead of TO SPEAK, it is just SPEAK.
Third-person verbs lose the final S in questions.
Let's look at another example.
He likes chocolate.
How can we change this to make a question?
We need DOES because it is a question and it refers to HE.
We use LIKE
because the infinitive is TO LIKE and we remove the TO part.
Does he like chocolate?
She lives in England.
How do we change this to make a question?
We need DOES
at the beginning because it is a question that refers to SHE.
The verb LIVES becomes LIVE
because it is the base form of the infinitive.
Does she live in England?
See, again there is no S after LIVE.
We go to school.
What is the question?
Do we go to school?
DO is necessary because it is a question in the simple present tense.
He goes to work.
This is an affirmative sentence.
How do we make it a question?
DOES because it is HE. Does he...?
Now look at the verb, it is GO.
But why GO and not GOES?
Because with questions, the verb is in the base form of the infinitive.
The infinitive is TO GO and we remove the TO part and only put GO.
Does he go to work?
You have a dictionary.
What is the question?
Yes, it is simple.
Do you have a dictionary?
She has black hair.
What is the question?
Does she have black hair?
HAVE because the infinitive is TO HAVE and we just remove the TO.
Does she have black hair?
Time to practice.
Make a question using the affirmative sentence that is given.
You need a jacket.
Do you need a jacket?
They want a new car.
Do they want a new car?
She drinks tea.
Does she drink tea?
Remember, there is no S after DRINK in this question.
He likes dogs.
Does he like dogs?
We need help.
Do we need help?
She plays tennis.
Does she play tennis?
Sometimes we use question words such as WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY etc. with DO and DOES.
These question words go before the auxiliary DO or DOES as in these examples.
What do you want?
What does he want?
Remember, there is no S after the verb in questions.
Some more examples:
Where do you live?
Where does he live?
Then we have the question: What do you do?
And people ask why are there two DOs in that question. Why?
The first DO is necessary to make a question.
The second DO is because of the verb or action TO DO.
I want to know the activities you do.
What does he do?
The DOES is because it refers to HE.
The word DO at the end is because it is the base form of the infinitive.. TO DO.
But we just put do.
We will see more about question words with DO and DOES in another video.