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
Hello Masas
In the sentence 'Who broke the window?', the subject of the verb 'broke' is 'Who'. Since the question word 'who' is also the subject of the verb, the verb goes in the regular past simple form ('broke'). This is a subject question.
In the sentence 'What did you break?', the subject of the verb is not 'What' but instead 'you'. Since the question word 'What' is not the subject, the verb goes in the question form 'did break': 'What did you break?'. This is not a subject question, since the question word and the subject of the verb are different.
I hope this helps.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Masas,
Subject and object questions ask about different things. Subject questions ask abotu the subject (the doer of the action) and object questions ask about the object (the thing the action is done to).
For example, look at this sentence:
In this sentence the subject is Paul and the object is a car.
> A subject question asks about Paul: Who bought a car?
> An object question asks about the car: What did Paul buy?
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team