Interrogative sentences in English «SkillSet English Language School. Types of questions in English 5 interrogatives

There are five types of questions in English. Let's take a closer look at each of them together. Each of the five types of interrogative sentences has its own word order, which you need to remember in order to learn how to ask questions correctly.

1. Question to the subject

In a sentence of this type, we maintain direct word order, leaving all members of the sentence in their places. You just need to find the subject in the sentence and replace it with a suitable question word, i.e. a question to which the subject answers: either Who? -who?, or What? -What? A question to the subject does not require the use of an auxiliary verb in the present and past tense. You just need to remember that the verb-predicate in the present tense takes the third person singular form.

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What forced you to do this? – What forced you to do this?
What made you worry? -What made you worry?
Who works in this office? – Who works in this office?
Who traveled to the south? – Who traveled south?
Who likes swimming? – who likes to swim?

2. General question

In this case, the question is asked to the entire sentence, there is no question word in this case, and the answer is always unambiguous: either “yes” or “no.” Questions of this type are also known in English as “yes / no question”. To translate such a sentence from Russian into English, you need to remember the following word order: Auxiliary verb (depending on the number of the subject and what grammatical tense the sentence belongs to) – subject – predicate – minor members.

Do you often go shopping? – Yes, I do – Do you go shopping often? - Yes
Does she like studying? - No, she doesn’t - Does she like studying? - No
Is this film interesting? – yes, it is – is this film interesting? - Yes
Are you hungry? - no, I am not - are you hungry? - No

Notice how easy it is to pose a general question to English declarative sentences. You just need to find the subject, choose the appropriate auxiliary verb for it and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

We live in a comfortable flat – Do we live in a comfortable flat?
He studies at a college – Does he study at a college?
They usually come here - Do they usually come here?
This student is very prospective – is this student very prospective?
My favorite colors are red and white – are my favorite colors red and white?

3. Alternative question

This question can be asked to each member of the sentence and you need to follow the same word order as when asking a general question, but with one feature - the sentence implies a choice between two persons, objects, actions or qualities and requires the use of the conjunction “or”. Let's pose an alternative question to the following sentence: We finished cooking dinner at 2 o’clock - we finished cooking dinner at 2 o’clock.

Did we finish cooking dinner at 2 or 3 o’clock? – did we finish cooking dinner at 2 or 3 o’clock?
Did we finish cooking or eating dinner 2 o’clock? – Have we finished cooking or is there lunch at 2 o’clock?

4. Special question

A special question is asked to any member of an English sentence and requires the use of a question word, and the word order is also reversed: in the first place (When? What? Where? etc.) is an auxiliary verb (depending on the number of the subject and on the fact that what grammatical tense does the sentence belong to) – subject – predicate – minor members.

When does your lesson begin? – When does your lesson start?
What are you doing here? - What are you doing here?
When did you buy this vase? – When did you buy this vase?

5. Dividing question

The presence of such a question in the English language allows you to unobtrusively ask about things of interest, and in addition express either doubt, surprise, or confirm what was said. A similar phrase is translated into Russian as “isn’t it? , is not it?". A similar question is divided into two parts: the first part is the sentence itself without changing the word order, the second part is a question consisting only of an auxiliary verb related to the grammatical tense of the sentence and a subject. If the sentence is affirmative, then the second part - the question - will be negative, and if the sentence is negative, then, on the contrary, the question will not contain a negation.

Your sister is a student, isn’t she? – your sister is a student, isn’t she?
You are not busy, are you? – you are not busy, are you?
He goes to bed very late, does not he? — he goes to bed very late, right?
She doesn’t eat meat, does she? – She doesn’t eat meat, does she?

Knowing the rules, you can easily correctly compose any interrogative sentence.

All sentences in English express an affirmation, negation or question. Today we will focus on interrogative sentences, because it is with them that students often have difficulties.

There are only 5 types of questions in English. Today’s article is a review article, which means that we will briefly talk about each of the five types of questions, provide a table for downloading, links to detailed articles about each question, and, of course, a test.

Let's remember that in English there is a certain order of words in a sentence: first comes the subject, followed by the predicate, then the object and the rest of the sentence. But this word order is violated in the question. A question can begin with a question word or an auxiliary verb (except for dividing questions), then there is a subject, predicate, object and the rest of the sentence. There are five types of questions in English:

Question type	Example
General	Are you a booklover? – Are you a book lover? Do you read books? - Do you read books?
Special	Why are you a booklover? – Why are you a book lover? When do you usually read books? – When do you usually read books?
Alternative	Are you a booklover or a non-reader? – Are you a book lover or not? Do you read books or magazines? – Do you read books or magazines?
Dividing	You are a booklover, aren't you ? – You're a book lover, aren't you? You don't read books, do you ? – You don't read books, do you?
Question to the subject	Who is a booklover? – Who is a book lover? Who reads books? – Who reads books?

General question

If the question must be answered “yes” or “no”, then it is a general question. It is also called “ Yes/No question" The general outline for such a question looks like this:

auxiliary or modal verb + subject + predicate + object + other parts of the sentence.

Do (auxiliary) you (subject) play (predicate) computer games (object) ? - Do you play computer games?

Can (modal verb) you (subject) do (predicate) it (object) for me ? -Can you do this for me?

Just don't forget that the verb to be In the present and simple past tenses, no auxiliary verbs are needed:

Are (verb to be) you (subject) at home (other members of the sentence)? - Are you home?

Was (verb to be) he (subject) at the cinema yesterday (other members of the sentence)? – Was he at the theater yesterday?

• Read more about the general issue in the article “”.

And also questions about time Present Simple the teacher sorted it out Alex:

Special question

There is no longer a simple “yes” or “no” answer to such a question. It requires a detailed and detailed answer. A special question in English is different in that it can be asked to any member of a sentence. The word order in such questions is the same as in general, only one of the question words must be placed at the beginning:

• What? - What?
• When? - When?
• Where? - Where?
• Why? - Why?
• Which? - Which?

Please note that all question words begin with wh, which is why this type of question is also called “ Wh-questions”.

And this is what the formula for constructing a special question looks like:

question word + auxiliary or modal verb + subject + predicate + object + other parts of the sentence.

Where (question word) are (auxiliary) you (subject) going (predicate) ? - Where are you going?

What (question word) do (auxiliary) you (subject) want to read (predicate) ? -What do you want to read?

When (question word) did (auxiliary) you (subject) leave (predicate) the house (object) ? - When did you leave home?

• If you have studied the general question well, then you can proceed to the special one. We are sure that after reading our article “”, you will not have any difficulties with this type.

Alternative question

Look at the name of this type of question - “alternative” means that the question must have a choice between two options. This question can be asked of any member of the proposal. And most importantly, here you will always find a union or(or). The formula is the same as in the general question, but you must remember to put or where needed. Let's look at how we can ask alternative questions to such a sentence:

They finished writing the article at 5 p.m. They finished writing the article at 5 pm.

Did they finish writing the article in the morning or at night? – Did they finish writing the article in the morning or in the evening?

Did they finish writing or reading the article? – Have they finished writing or reading the article?

• If you need more material on this issue, then use the materials in the article “”.

Separated question

The word order in such a question is direct, as in a regular sentence. And only at the end of such a sentence we will encounter a question called tag. In Russian there is also such a question, and it sounds like this: “ is not it?» / « is not it?» / « Yes?. In order to form tag-question, the auxiliary verb and the subject must be placed at the end of the sentence. There are two ways to form such a question in English:

1. The beginning of the sentence is affirmative + a short negative question.

He reads a book, doesn't he? – He’s reading a book, isn’t he?

His friend is German, isn't he? – His friend is German, isn’t he?

2. The beginning of the sentence is negative + a short positive question.

She doesn't go to the church, does she? - She doesn't go to church, does she?

He is not at the meeting, is he? - He's not at the meeting, is he?

• Don't forget to read the article "". In it you will find interesting cases of using tag-question and many other examples.

And, as always, the teacher Alex in his video he will tell you this topic from the point of view of a native English speaker. The topic of dividing questions is the same, but from a slightly different angle.

Question to the subject

The easiest question to formulate. You need to take an affirmative sentence, remove the subject and replace it with who(who) or what(What). No auxiliary verbs are needed. There is only one nuance - in the present tense we add the ending - s to the verb.

Who invite s guests for the party? – Who invites guests to a party?

What make s do you feel upset? – What makes you sad?

What happened to us? – What happened to us?

• Even though the topic seems simple, we still advise you to look at the article “” for more detailed information.

That's all 5 types of questions in English. Having studied the methods of constructing them and downloaded our tablet, you can easily determine what question you have in front of you.

(*.pdf, 49 Kb)

Want to practice question types? Then take our test:

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Test

Types of Questions in English 1

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Today we will look at and, of course, examples with them. In order not to make a mistake, the main thing is to understand three things: 1) what kind of question you will have, 2) in what tense it should be asked, and 3) what should be the order of words in an interrogative sentence. In this article we will deal with the first point.

5 types of questions in English and examples with them

Usually isolated 5 types of questions in English. We will briefly dwell on each of them and consider examples.

1. General question. Here you don't even need question words, since the question type itself does not imply their use. When asking a general question, the interlocutor expects to hear a short positive or negative answer from you.

Examples:

Are you doing your homework now? – Are you doing your homework now?

Do they go to the cinema every Friday? – Do they go to the cinema every Friday?

Was he reading a newspaper when I phoned? – Was he reading the newspaper when I called?

Will you give me a couple of recommendations? – Can you give me some recommendations?

Is your brother at work? – Is your brother at work?

2. Special question. Here you will already need a question word or even a phrase. From this moment the special question should begin. Next, you should adhere to the standard question structure.

Examples:

How much do these books cost? – How much do these books cost?

What is he doing here? -What is he doing here?

Where were you yesterday? - Where were you yesterday?

What city did he visit last week? – What city did he visit last week?

Whose beg was stolen? – Whose bag was stolen?

3. Alternative question. This type of question implies OR. Before or everything looks the same as in the general question, and then a suitable addition follows.

Examples:

Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? – Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?

Is he doing his homework or playing computer games? – Does he do homework or play computer games?

Will they go on a business trip on Tuesday or Wednesday?

Does Bob speak Spanish or Italian? – Does Bob speak Spanish or Italian?

Were they in Egypt or Turkey last summer? – Were they in Egypt or Turkey last summer?

4. Separated question.

5. Question to the subject.

The last two types of questions require special attention, so we will consider them separately.

How to ask a dividing question in English? Examples

If you don't know, it's worth brushing up on auxiliary verbs, as you'll definitely need them. Pay attention to the structure of the question and examples.

Declarative sentence + , + auxiliary verb + not + person

Negative sentence + , + auxiliary verb + person

He is doing his homework now, isn’t he? – He does his homework, doesn’t he?

Miranda was in Germany last week, wasn’t she? – Miranda was in Germany last week, wasn’t she?

They speak Russian, don’t they? – They speak Russian, don’t they?

You haven’t forgotten to phone her, have you? “You didn’t forget to call her, did you?”

They won't leave for Prague, will they? – They won’t go to Prague, will they?

As you can see, the second part of the question (the tail) depends on what kind of beginning you had. One of the parts (and not two at the same time) must be negative.

A question that requires a "YES" or "NO" answer. In our case - “Do they go to Sochi every summer? - Yes. - No.”
In Russian, to ask this question, we simply change the intonation, but the word order remains the same.
In English, to ask a general question, you need to place the auxiliary verb first in the sentence.

So, let's look at our proposal and determine the time. Present Simple. The auxiliary verbs of this tense are “do” and “does”. For the pronoun "they" - "do".

We get: “Do they go to Sochi every summer?”
Answer: “Yes, they do” - “Yes.” "No, they don't" - "No."

Note! In English there are "strong verbs" that do not require an auxiliary verb. These are almost all modal verbs (“can”, “may”, “must”, etc.) and the verb “to be” (or rather its forms).

2) Alternative question. Alternative Question

A matter of choice. I’ll show you with our example: “Do they or WE go to Sochi every summer?”, “Do they DRIVE or FLY to Sochi every summer?”, “Do they go to Sochi or Murmansk every summer?”, “They go to Sochi every SUMMER or WINTER?

Conclusion: we can set an alternative to each member of the sentence. In this case, we always use the conjunction “or” - “or”. Remember it!

Let's summarize... To ask an alternative question, we bring forward the auxiliary verb (as in the general question) and do not forget to ask an alternative to any member of the sentence using the conjunction "or".

We get: “Do we or they go to Sochi every summer?”
or: "Do they go to Sochi or Murmansk every summer?"

3) Dividing question. Tag-question

Question with a “tail”)) We translate the tail “Isn’t it?”
A dividing question is constructed using the following formula:

our sentence unchanged + comma + tail?

What kind of tail is this? It consists of 2 words: an auxiliary verb and a pronoun.

Let me explain with our example:
"They go to Sochi every summer."

First of all, it is necessary to accurately determine the time.. In our case - Present Simple.. auxiliary verbs "Do"/"Does".. "They" - "Do". Let's look at our sentence again and determine whether it is negative or affirmative.. Affirmative means our tail will be negative! If the sentence were negative, the auxiliary verb would become positive, i.e. without the negative particle "not".

We complete our sentence with the pronoun from the 1st part - “they”. Attention! If in the first part of the sentence the subject is a noun, replace it with a pronoun (for example, “a table” - “it”, “books” - “they”, “Mom” - “she”).

They go to Sochi every summer, don't they?
(They go to Sochi every summer, don't they?)

Note! If the role of subject and predicate is “I am”, in the tail we write “...., aren”t I?”

4) Special question. Special Question

A question in which the speaker requests specific information. (“Where do they go every summer?”, “Who goes to Sochi every summer?”, “When do they go to Sochi?”).

A special question is often called a "Wh-Question". This is due to the fact that almost all question words begin with the letter combination “Wh”.

For example:
what? - What? Which?
where? - Where? Where?
why? - Why?
which? - which?
who? - Who?
how? - How?
when? - When?

Special question formula:
Question words + general question?

"Where do they go to every summer?"
"When do they go to Sochi?"

Special question to the subject.
"Who goes to Sochi every summer?"

We will consider this type of special question separately, since it has a different structure:

Who/What + rewrite the sentence without a subject.

Attention!!! The most important thing is Who/what - 3rd person, singular! Do you remember that in the Present Simple in this case the ending “-s/-es” is added to the verb!

We get: "Who goes to Sochi every summer?"

Every day we ask questions. For example, we often ask:

How are you doing?

What did you do yesterday?

Who will go to the store?

Are you going to the cafe or not?

Everyone who learns English must know how questions are formed, because without them you will not be able to communicate. In English there is 5 types of questions. In the English course for adults, you will practice each of them until it becomes automatic. In the meantime, let's figure out how they differ.

Special questions in English

The word “special” means “intended exclusively for something.” Accordingly, this question needed to find out specific information you are interested in. That’s why it’s called special, that is, you want to clarify special information.

For example

Where will you go on vacation?

We find out specific information - the place where the person will go.

How to construct a special question?

It is asked using the following question words:

• what - what,
• where - where,
• when - when,
• who - who,
• why - why,
• how (much/often/long) - how (many/often/long).

A special question is constructed according to the following scheme:

Question word + auxiliary verb + character + action being performed?

Examples

Step by step guide
>> How to ask specific questions.

Question to the subject in English

The subject names who or what the sentence is talking about.

In the survey, the subject is asked with the interrogative words who and what, which replace the character or thing being talked about in the sentence. For example

Who will pack your suitcase for you?

Consequently, we ask a question to the subject when we do not know who performed the action or has the attribute.

How to construct a question to the subject?

The peculiarity of this question will be the order of words in the sentence. In this type of question, the word order never changes and proceeds as in an affirmative sentence. The outline of such a proposal would be as follows:

Who + action?

For example, we have an affirmative sentence

They played tennis.
They played tennis.

We simply substitute the question word who instead of they

Who played tennis?
Who played tennis?

At the same time, we imagine that who/what is the singular person in question (he, she). Therefore, the sentence should be constructed as if in place of who/what costs he/she.

For example, we have a proposal

They were in the car.
They were in the car.

When asking a question, we forget about they and introduce he in its place, therefore, we replace were with was

Who were in the car?
Who was in the car?

Examples

Who likes to sing?
Who loves to sing?

What was in the box?
What was in the box?

Who is a doctor?
Who is the doctor?

Step by step guide:
>> How to construct a question to the subject? .

Alternative questions in English

True to its name, this question presupposes an alternative, that is, the right to choose. By asking it we give the interlocutor two options to choose from.

Example

Will you fly to England or Germany?

In such a matter there is always there is a conjunction or (or). The question itself is constructed as a general one, only at the end we add a choice clause using our or.

Scheme for constructing an alternative question:

Auxiliary verb + actor + action performed + ___ or ___?

Examples

Will they go to the park or to the cinema?
Will they go to the park or to the cinema?

Did you buy apples or pears?
Did you buy apples or pears?

Does he work or study?
Does he work or study?

Step by step guide:
>> How to construct an alternative question correctly.

Dividing questions in English

This type of question is also called a “tail question.” A question expresses doubt or desires confirmation of something.

For example

You've already packed your suitcase, haven't you?

It is divisive because consists of 2 parts, separated by commas.

The first part is constructed as an affirmative or negative sentence with the usual word order.

The second part (“tail”) looks like a short question. It consists of:

• auxiliary verb (depending on the tense used in the first part);
• character (I, you, he, she, they, it, we, you) used in the first part.

We translate such a “tail” into Russian as “isn’t it so” / “isn’t it true?”

1. If the first part of the sentence is affirmative, then the second part is negative.

Affirmative sentence + auxiliary verb + not (in shortened form) + character?

Examples

He called you yesterday, didn't he?
He called you yesterday, didn't he?

They play tennis every weekends, don't they?
They play tennis every weekend, don't they? Examples

So, we have looked at all five types of questions in English. Now let's move on to practice.

Reinforcement task

Make 5 types of questions from the following affirmative sentences:

1. He went to school yesterday.
2. She gave me a phone.
3. We will read this book.
4. They bought a car.
5. She doesn’t like to cook.

Leave your answers in the comments below the article.