Question forms & subject/object questions

Review of question forms

Yes/No questions

Is he a teacher? Yes he is.

Can you swim? No, I cant.
Have they got a car? Yes they have.

To form yes/no questions where there is an auxiliary verb or a modal verb,

we invert the word order of a positive sentence.

Do you eat fish? No I dont.

Does she know you. Yes she does.

When there is no auxiliary verb we use do to form the question.

With question words

The same rules apply when there is a question word (what, where, when,
why, who, which, how, how much, how many)

Where is the hotel?

What can you smell?
Who has just arrived?

Where there is an auxiliary or modal verb, that verb is used to form the
question.

How did you get here?

When do your parents get back?
How much does it cost?

Where did you go swimming? > In the swimming pool in town.

Why did you go there? > Because its a nice, big pool.
Who did you go swimming with? > With Amy.
What time did you meet Amy? > At 10 oclock.
Which pool did you go in? > The serious one, without the slides!
How did you get there? > On the bus.
We make questions by:

1: moving an auxiliary to the front of the clause:

We make questions by adding the auxiliary do/does for the present simple or
did for the past simple:

Everybody is watching >> Is everybody watching?

They live here >> Do they live here?

John lives here >> Does John live here?

Everybody laughed >> Did everybody laugh?

English is spoken all over the Is English spoken all over the
>>
world world?

John is writing a letter.

She walks home from school.
The children are sitting in the garden.
Peter runs with his dog on Sundays.
My rabbit has a cage in the garden.
I'm leaving now.
We are going to the cinema.
Jenny isn't sleeping late today.
David likes cats because they are nice.
They go to work by bus.
My rabbit has a cage in the garden.
 past simple

With most verbs the past tense is formed by adding -ed:

call >> called; like >> liked; want >> wanted; work >> worked

Use

We use the past tense to talk about:

something that happened once in the past:

I met my wife in 1983.

We went to Spain for our holidays.
They got home very late last night.

something that happened again and again in the past:

When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day.

We swam a lot while we were on holiday.
They always enjoyed visiting their friends.

something that was true for some time in the past:

I lived abroad for ten years.

He enjoyed being a student.
She played a lot of tennis when she was younger.

we often use phrases with ago with the past tense:

I met my wife a long time ago.

Questions and negatives

We use did to make questions with the past tense:

When did you meet your wife?

Where did you go for your holidays?
Did she play tennis when she was younger?
Did you live abroad?

But look at these questions:

Who discovered penicillin?

Who wrote Don Quixote?

For more on these questions see question forms

We use didnt (did not) to make negatives with the past tense:

They didnt go to Spain this year.

We didnt get home until very late last night.
I didnt see you yesterday.