quinta-feira, 1 de setembro de 2011

Question Formation Explanation

1. In questions with modal verbs, where is an auxiliary verb we need to invert the subject.
    
Ex.: Can I drink water?


2. When we make questions with simple present or past, we have to use do/does or did.


 Ex.: Did you do your homework? (simple past)
        Does your mother like rice?


3. When is used negative questions, is often to show surprise or when you expect somebody to agree with you.


Ex.: Paulo, why don’t you like chocolate?


4. When we make questions that the verb is followed by a preposition it often goes in the end of the sentence.


Ex.: A: Who did you talk to?
       B: I talked to Cameron Diaz.


5. When we do questions where “what, where, which…” is the subject, we don’t use do/does/did


Ex.: Who made that sculpture? 
       How many people came here?

6. To be more polite we use indirect questions. We need to remember that in indirect questions the order is: SUBJECT + VERB. We can’t use do/did in the second part of the question. And we can use if or whether after Can you tell me, Do you know

Ex.: Can you tell me where NILTON LIVES? (subject + verb)
       Do you know where nilton lives? (it’s correct) … Do you know where does Nilton live? (it’s wrong)
      Can you tell me or Do you know if/whether Nilton is at home?

Dialog using auxiliary verbs and question formation

A: Hi Paulo!


B: Hi Gabi!


A: How are you?


B: I got a cold so I'm so so.How about you? And school, is everything OK?


A: Poor you. I'm fine. In school everything is fine. And you, can you go to school with this cold?


B: Yes, sure! But the things are not so good for me, because I got a recuperation in Portuguese.


A: Would you like some help? Me and some friends could help you.


B: It's OK, but how many people are coming?


A: It is not so many, just fifty!


B: fifty?


A: Sure,  and then we could have a party! What do you think about?


B: I think it's insane. I need help! Not a party. It's better you go away before I punch you!


A: My God, and then I'm the insane in here! Bye boy!