Asking questions in English – Question forms

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  • Exercises: 1 2 3 4

    Asking questions in English – Question forms

    Exercise 1

    Choose the correct forms to complete the questions below.

    1 How often to the dentist?

    2 How many brothers and sisters ?

    3 What time pick me up?

    4 Where last night?

    5 John this morning?

    6 Why that box there?

    7 What with the scissors?

    8 When a decision?

    9 What time you tomorrow?

    10 Who to the party?


     

    Exercises: 1 2 3 4

  • Word order in questions – Grammar chart

    Infographic explaining the word order in English questions, with examples for standard question order and questions using the auxiliary verb 'be'. The chart illustrates the placement of question words, auxiliary verbs, subjects, and main verbs or adjectives for forming questions in English.

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    Questions in general

    If we want to ask a question in English, the order is QWASM: Question word, Auxiliary verb, Subject, Main verb. In Yes-No questions (questions where the answer is yes or no), there is no Question Word.

    Questions with be as the main verb

    When be is the main verb, it is used as the Auxiliary in the question, and then we don’t have a Main verb after the Subject.

    Auxiliary verbs

    In the position of Auxiliary, we can use be, do, have or any modal verb: can, could, will, would, should, etc.

    Have is only an auxiliary verb in the form have got and in the present perfect.

    • Have you got any brothers or sisters?
    • What have you cooked for lunch?

    For other uses of have, we need an auxiliary verb (do, did) for questions.

    • What time had you dinner yesterday? blank
    • What time did you have dinner yesterday? blank
    • Have you to do it now? blank
    • Do you have to do it now? blank

    Have got only has a present form. It does not have a past form.

    • Had you got many toys when you were a child? blank
    • Did you have many toys when you were a child? blank

     

    Question words

    Colorful educational chart of question words in English, categorized by their use such as 'WHO' for person, 'WHERE' for place, and 'HOW OLD' for age, with example dialogues for each word

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    How much

    We can use how much to ask about the price of something.

    • How much is the jacket?

    How + adjective

    We can use how + adjective (any adjective) as a question word.

    • How tall are you?
    • How fast is your car?

    Which vs what

    We can use which + noun, and we can also use what + noun. We use which when there are a small number of possible answers. Look at the difference:

    • Which car do you like, the red or the blue? (there is a small number of possible answers)
    • ‘What car have you got?’ ‘A Mercedes.’ (many possible answers)

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