Question forms

Do you know how to make questions?

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?

Explanation

They are used to ask for confirmation or agreement. To form a question tag, we use an auxiliary verb and an appropriate personal pronoun (I, we, you, etc.). If there is an auxiliary verb in the sentence, we use it. Otherwise, in present and past simple tenses, we use do, does or did.

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

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

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.

We use the auxiliary verb did in the past simple.

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?