Question types...
How many question types are there?
How are they formed?
How are they different?
If you are not sure how you can answer these questions,
then it's high time we studied question types.
There are five basic question types
and today we are going to talk about each and every one of them.
So let's get started.
Question type number one is a general question.
This is very easy, these are basic questions.
Most questions are general ones.
Sometimes they are called 'yes or no questions'.
So the answers to these questions can be 'yes' or 'no'.
And of course you can extend your idea and give some more details.
An example:
Do you want to become the President of the world?
Yes, I do!
Are you an alien?
No, I'm not.
Are you busy today?
No, I have free time, we can go out!
So there questions are general questions.
The answers are 'yes' or 'no', yes or no questions.
Now the structure: first you use an auxiliary verb,
So it can be 'DO you like music?'
'HAVE you had breakfast today?'
'WILL you help me?' and so on.
So these are auxiliary verbs - helping words.
So they go first, after them you use the subject,
then the main verb and the rest of the sentence.
Usually an object and then adverbial modifiers and so on.
So this is the structure.
And these questions are very easy,
very simple, there's nothing special about them.
Now let's move on to special questions.
There's something interesting and particular about them.
So special questions are questions with question words,
or WH-words, that's how they are sometimes called
because most of them start with 'wh'.
These are what, who, when, where, why, what for,
how, how old, how long, how far, how much, how many,
how come and some more.
So these are question words and you put them
at the beginning of the sentence.
And then you have a special question like:
What do you prefer: skiing or snowboarding?
Why do all politicians keep lying?
How come you are not ready yet?
How is it even possible?
It's been three hours!
Come we need to hurry! We'll never make it in time!
So as for the structure you have the question word,
then the auxiliary verb, the subject,
the main verb and the rest of the sentence.
So the structure is basically the same as for general questions
with the difference that you just put the question word
at the beginning of the sentence, that's it.
And there is one more question type.
It is closely connected with special questions,
with 'what' and 'who' special questions exactly.
So questions with 'what' and 'who' can be object questions.
So when we talk about the object, so we do not know what is the object.
Foe example: 'What are you reading'?
So I do not know what you are reading.
What you are reading is the object.
You action is directed to the object,
it is reading, a book. I do not know
what author or what book you are reading.
So this is an object question.
But there are also subject questions.
Subject 'what' and 'who questions,
when 'what' and 'who' are the subject of the sentence.
So when we do not know who is performing the action.
For example: 'Who is the President of Iceland?'
I don't know, shame on me. Do you?
Well 'who' is the subject of this sentence.
So it goes first, and after it we have a verb,
'Who is'.
Usually in questions we are supposed to use inversion.
But not in this case.
So we do not need to use some extra auxiliary verbs
and so on and put them before the sгbject.
The subject is in the first place.
We don't need to do any modifications.
We just put the verb and then the rest of the sentence:
the object, the modifiers and so on.
Very simple. 'What makes you cry?'
As for me, when I see somebody hurting somebody else it makes me cry.
So the sentence is 'What makes you cry?'
'What' is the subject here and 'makes' is the verb.
'You' is not the subject of the sentence here, it's just an object.
And the next question type is alternative questions.
What shall I do: this or that?
The name speaks for itself.
So these are questions which give you alternatives.
So somebody provides you alternatives
and you have a choice, you can choose what you want.
For example: 'Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?'
Do you work or are you a housewife?
Have you been to China or any other Asian country?
Well, so you have alternatives, you have variants to choose from.
These are alternative questions.
The structure is the same as for general questions
or special questions with the only difference that
you have alternatives, you have 'or'.
You you can use the structure 'either... or'.
Would you either prefer going to the cinema
or to the theater?
I should be wearing glasses for that.
Anyway moving on to the next type, which is 'Tag questions'.
Tag questions are the most complicated ones,
because on most languages there are no analogues.
So a tag question is something lie a mini-question.
Well, if you take a look at the structure, you'll see
that you have a statement and then you have a mini-question at the end
or a tag.
Sometimes these questions are called 'tail questions'
and I think that it is a little bit more logical.
So 'tail questions' or 'mini-questions'.
You speak English, don't you?
Here I'm almost 100% sure that you speak English, I know you do!
Because you are watching my videos, so you should be able to speak.
So I say: 'You speak English, don't you?'
The first part of the sentence is a statement.
'You speak English'. If I take away the tag,
this is just a simple sentence without a question mark at the end, this is a statement.
You speak English. Full stop. That's it.
But if I put a tag at the end then it's actually a question.
One more interesting thing is intonation.
If you say it like this: 'You speak English, don't you?'
Then I'm sure you do, this is not a question.
But if I say: 'You speak English, don't you?'
So my intonation goes up, the pitch goes up at the end of the sentence,
then this is actually a question.
I'm not sure, I'm asking you.
The next example: 'It is snowing outside, isn't it?'
Let's check it out, let's take this little party outside!
Let's take a look outside.
It is snowing.
Now take a look at these two examples.
In the first one we have 'don't you?'
and in the second one we have 'isn't it?'
They are different, tags are different.
How do we know which one to use?
How to formulate it? So there is s scheme, let's take a look.
So we have a statement
and to create a tag we should define the tense.
So for example, in the first statement
'You speak English' what tense is it? It is Present Simple.
And when we create questions in Present Simple
we are supposed to use an auxiliary verb 'do' or 'does'.
In this case 'do', because we have the subject 'you'.
So we should use 'do' in our tag. What else?
And we should also use a pronoun, connected with the subject.
So 'you speak English', 'you' is the subject.
We do not need to change it into a pronoun,
it is already a pronoun, that's why we use 'you'.
So we have 'do' and we have 'you'.
What shall we do with it now?
We are supposed to put the auxiliary verb first
in the negative form, and then put the pronoun: 'don't you?'
Or in the second case: 'It is snowing, isn't it?'
It is snowing - present continuous,
the auxiliary verb 'is', we put it in the tag, make it negative
and use the pronoun.
One more example: 'Teachers do not earn big money, do they?'
Take a look, the first part of the sentence, the statement, is negative this time.
That's why the tag should be positive.
They should always be opposite.
If the statement is positive, the tag is negative.
If the statement is negative, the tag is positive.
Now create a couple of examples yourself.
You haven't created any examples, have you? Please do!
So that's it for today, I hope that you found this class useful,
and now you know all these types
and how they are created, how they are formulated.
In order to practice, please do the exercise at the end.
I will include an exercise,
where you would be able to define different question types
and also correct some mistakes.
So you need to practice, practice is everything!
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And I hope to see you soon! Happy English practice! Bye!