English Grammar: Tag Questions for ALL TENSES!

Hi folks, welcome back to www.engvid.com . My name's Benjamin.

In today's lesson, we are going to be looking at question tags.

This lesson follows on from one of my other lessons, where I look at expressing your questions

in a range of grammatical structures.

Now, we're going to be going into the question tag style of question in quite a bit of detail.

And we're going to be using it as a vehicle to revise the main tenses in English in the

past, present, and future.

Now, it goes beyond a level of detail that is required for beginners.

It still could be interesting for you guys, but we wouldn't expect you to use all of these

different tenses until a little bit later on in your English learning journey.

So, let's hit the ground running.

I'm going to start off by making these question tags with positive statements, which will

mean that the question phrase is in the negative.

We're going to look at present tenses to start with.

Now, the verb "to be" in the present tense, we would say "He's hungry, isn't he?", or

"She's thirsty, isn't she?", or "I'm Benjamin, aren't I?"

"They're Canadian, aren't they?"

Okay?

So, this bit will change depending on the conjugation of the verb.

I am, you are, he or she, it is, we are, you are, they are.

So, whatever the verb form for the particular subject, it needs to be there, okay?

Right.

Other, well, most types of other verbs in the present simple.

"She sings beautifully, doesn't she?", yep, so we're using the auxiliary verb "to do",

"does".

"We play well, don't we?"

Okay?

So, I do, you do, he, she, or it does, we do, you do, they do.

Again, the conjugation, you just need to make sure that you have agreement here, okay, that

it's in the right form.

"I do have a sister, don't I?"

Okay?

"They know the way, don't they?"

Okay?

So, it'll become easier, the more confident and fluent you are with the conjugation of

the verbs.

Moving onto modals, I'm not going to get into a huge amount of detail with the modals here,

but I just want you to be aware that, with the different modals, can, should, must, could,

would, that you can use them and that they're going to be different in the question tag,

yep.

"I could have gone to sea, couldn't I?"

"I should have eaten lunch, shouldn't I?"

Okay?

So, you can experiment with the modals as well.

Now, the present continuous, we normally use to talk about future arrangements, even though

it's technically in the present tense.

"I'm going there soon, aren't I?"

"He's spending Christmas here, isn't he?"

Okay?

So, present continuous, we use to talk about future arrangements, -ing, okay?

I'm doing this, aren't I?

He's doing that, isn't he?

She is doing that, isn't she?

We are doing this, aren't we?

Okay?

Now, forms of the present tense that are actually referring to the past.

The present perfect.

Now, the present perfect refers to an unspecified time in the past.

So, there's no definite time phrase saying it was at like, 4:42 yesterday or last Saturday.

That's not the present perfect, and I have got a separate video coming out on the difference

between the present perfect and the past simple.

So, if you're not sure about it, do have a look at that video.

And if there's any tenses where I'm going through and you haven't quite understood how

or what that tense is, then do go to the www.engvid.com website, and there will be a video for each

of these tenses, okay?

I'm just giving an overview.

So, the present perfect is an unspecified time in the past, using "have" with past participle.

"You've tidied your room, haven't you?"

"I've done well, haven't I?"

"They've completed the race, haven't they?"

Right.

Present perfect continuous, this refers to an action started in the past, but continued

up until now.

"They've been training really hard, haven't they?"

"We've been cleaning the house, haven't we?"

"You've been painting a picture, haven't you?"

Okay.

So, as I said, these are all positive statements with negative questions.

Now, I can reverse that around and have negative statements with a question phrased in the

positive.

Let me demonstrate: "He isn't hungry, is he?"

So, changing the meaning, it shows that I'm kind of surprised by - what, he can't be hungry.

How can he be hungry?

"She doesn't sing beautifully, does she?"

Yeah, it's quite disparaging, quite critical.

"You don't do that very well, do you?"

It's slightly insulting.

"They can't sing, can they?"

It's kind of poking fun at.

Future arrangements: "I'm not going there, am I?"

"I don't have to do that, do I?"

"I'm not doing this, am I?

Surely not.

Please, no.

I don't want to do that."

So, there are meaning shifts, naturally, if your reverse the positive and the negative.

"I haven't tidied my room, have I?

No, I've been bad.

I haven't tidied my room, have I?"

"They haven't been training very hard, have they?"

Right.

We're now going to have a look at standard past tense verbs, so I'll see you on the next

page, so to speak.

Okay, let's have a look at some past tense forms of the verbs.

Just to say at this point, if this is the kind of video that you find useful to improve

your grammar, then please make sure you're a subscriber of my YouTube channel.

That way, you will get new content whenever it comes out on YouTube.

Good.

Right.

Let's have a look at the past simple with the verb "to be".

"You were tired yesterday, weren't you?"

Okay, just go through the conjugations.

"I was tired yesterday, wasn't I?"

"We were tired yesterday, weren't we?"

"They were tired yesterday, weren't they?"

Okay?

"He was tired yesterday, wasn't he?" or she, okay?

Past simple with most other verbs: "I met" - past participle - "you in Switzerland last

year, didn't I?"

"She met you in Switzerland last year, didn't she?"

"We met in Switzerland last year, didn't we?"

Okay, you get the idea.

The past continuous; something - just to explain what the past continuous was - is - it's something

that was going on in the past when it was interrupted, okay?

"You were talking to Andy, weren't you?" when maybe the phone connection cut out.

"I was talking to Andy, wasn't I?"

It's like, I forgot what I was doing.

I was talking to Andy, wasn't I?

That stopped and something else continued.

I was talking to Andy, wasn't I?

Good.

Moving on.

The past perfect.

Now, we use the past perfect when we are talking about something that happened before something

else in the past.

So, in the past, we've got this thing happened first, and then this thing, we're looking

at the thing that happened first.

"They'd visited the cathedral, hadn't they?"

First thing, visiting cathedral.

Second thing, having some lunch.

We're trying to remember, because it's a long way back in the past.

"They'd" - so, abbreviate to "they'd" - "They'd visited the cathedral, hadn't they?"

"I'd bought" - so, irregular verbs are going to use their participles - "I'd bought a lollipop,

hadn't I?"

"They'd driven to Norwich, hadn't they?"

Okay?

So, this is kind of a lesson where different aspects of your overall mastery of grammar,

again, to come into play, because you're going to need to be able to conjugate the verbs

and we need to know our participles to get this accurately.

That, as I said, there are other videos to help you with this.

The past perfect continuous.

Now, I'm not going to go into a huge amount of the detail here, because there are different

uses of this tense.

But one of those uses is to talk about something that has started but then stopped.

For example, "You'd been trying very hard, hadn't you?"

So, we have some trying.

The trying stops, but I'm talking about the thing that had been started.

"You'd been trying very hard, hadn't you?"

"I'd been crying, hadn't I?"

"They'd been cheating, hadn't they?"

And then the teacher told them off and said "No, no, no, no, no, don't do that.

Naughty."

Now, as with the first board, we've got positive statements followed by a negative question,

and same thing applies.

We can reverse them, and the meaning will change.

I, or "I wasn't tired yesterday, was I?"

"You weren't tried yesterday, were you?"

Yep, just putting the negative over here, and this becomes positive.

"I didn't meet you in Switzerland last year, did I?"

So, it's like a surprise.

"You weren't talking to Andy, were you?"

Okay, again, the effect is like a surprise.

"They hadn't visited the cathedral, had they?"

So, this time, it's like a check-in.

We're trying to figure out what exactly they had done and what they hadn't done.

"You hadn't been trying very hard, had you?"

Okay, so the past perfect is a complete action in the past, but it had been going on for

some time.

Very good.

Excellent concentration.

Now, this is exactly the type of lesson where doing the quiz is going to be really important.

So, do make sure that you, in the back of your mind, you know you're going to do the

quiz on this one.

And it's probably a good video to try and revisit as well, yep.

So, you watch it maybe today and then in four days' time, you're going to watch it again,

because we're going through a lot of tenses in this lesson.

Okay.

I'll see you in the future.

Hi guys.

Made it into the future with me, great stuff.

Onwards to the future simple.

"I'll get paid tomorrow, won't I?"

Checking that it's going to happen, hopefully.

Future continuous: "We'll be leaving", -ing form of the verb, "in ten minutes, won't we?"

Checking that this is going to happen.

The future perfect is a sort of imagined completed action in the future.

For example, "You'll", sort for "you will", "have left the flat", or apartment "before

Friday, won't you?"

Double checking that it's going to happen.

The future perfect continuous is something that will continue up until a certain point.

So, "You'll have been driving for two hours, won't you?"

So, I'm imagining that, in the future, and we're going to be kind of looking back.

So, in the future, and thinking what has just been happening up until that point.

Now, just with the present and with the past, we have had present statements with the questions

phrased in the negative.

And just like here, we can flip it around.

So, if we want to say this in the negative, we would have to say, "I won't", instead of

"will", "I won't get paid tomorrow", and the "will" goes here, "will I?"

"We won't be leaving in ten minutes, will we?"

"You won't have left the flat before Friday, will you?"

"You won't have been driving for two hours, will you?"

Okay, that note of surprise again, when we change the construction around.

So, as I said, having a go at today's quiz would be very beneficial, as will revisiting

this tense revision in a few days' time, just so we're really making sure we know what each

of the tenses are.

These aren't all of the tenses in English, but they're the most commonly used.

So, I hope that's been useful to you, and I'll see you very soon.