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
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
Who or What can be subject of an interrogative question and in that case the WH word precedes the verb while making a question. My question is whether "How" can also be a subject and in that case should precede the verb in a question. Thank you in advance.
Hello mahbubhossain,
I can't think of an example in which we would use 'how' in this way. 'How' describes a method or means of doing something; it does not lend itself to this construction.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dear Team! Could you please help me with the question 'Have you no shame'? I'm trying to find a rule to justify the usage of the inversion in the question. In standard English it could have been 'Have you got no shame?' or 'Do you have no shame?' But here either a verb or an auxilliary verb is omitted. So, is it a kind of colloquial way of asking a question? Or does it serve as a rhetoric question? Thanks a lot for your kind help!
Hi Ankorr,
Actually, this is a type of question form that is considered relatively formal, and somewhat old-fashioned in style. It is formed by putting the main verb before the subject and unlike the usual question form, no auxiliary verb is added. Here are some other examples.
Because of its formality, it's relatively less common nowadays than the regular question forms that you mentioned in your comment. In the case of "Have you no shame?", however, this particular phrase as a whole has become a fixed phrase and is somewhat commonly used, even though overall this structure is uncommon.
I hope that helps to understand it.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi, I have a question please.... Which of the following statement is correct? and why?
Do we say
what did you win? or what you won?
Thank you!
Hi Amani Sweidan,
The first one is correct - What did you win? Past simple questions need the auxiliary verb (did).
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dear teachers.Could you provide some content on 'Inversion'.
Not only in questions but in other cases like conditionals.
Many thanks.
Hi Sajatadib,
Thank you for your suggestion :) We are hoping to add new content soon and we will keep it in mind.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Sir could you please explain to me why I shouldn't use "what did happen next?" And why the right form is " what happened next?" ( affirmative and whats the meaning of affirmative) And also in what conditions I should do the same, I mean I thought happen also needs auxiliary verb... I'm confused, the example was from speak out upper intermediate second edition book page 128 GRAMMAR
Regards,
Anahita
Hello anahitabehzadi,
We can ask questions about different parts of a sentence. For example:
In this sentence we have a subject (the boy) and an an object (the window). When we ask about the object we use an auxiliary verb:
However, when we ask about the subject we simply replace 'the boy' with a question word:
Your example is similar to this so no auxiliary is needed.
These are called 'object questions' and 'subject questions'. You can read a little about them here:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/a1-a2-grammar/question-forms
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team