English Grammar - How to ask questions

Hi. Sorry, normally I'm reading, but Ezekiel's reading today. Sorry.

Excuse me a second. Can I repeat that? Yeah, normally I read, but Ezekiel's reading today.

Today we're going to do useful information questions. In the classroom, often I end up

repeating things to students several times, and one of my favorite questions students

ask incorrectly, by the way, is this one. It's going to be in red because every country

in the world they do this. My response is usually, "Could you repeat that?" Because

they say, "What means X teacher?" X is anything you want to say. "What means table teacher?

What means drag queen teacher? What means you want my telephone number teacher because

you think I'm beautiful?" Yes, that's right. Give it to me. I mean, anyway. What means

is wrong. It's a misunderstanding or a not proper understanding of the question form

in English. In English, the question form has to be, okay. Sorry, Ezekiel. You go back

to reading, okay? The question form in English is usually verb plus subject, and that equals

a question. A lot of languages, especially Latin languages, they actually have subject

plus verb equals question. You have to keep in mind with us the verb comes first. So you

might go, "What is this?" Right? Because we have this, and you go, "What is it? Is that

the meaning?" Right? But we also have what's called an information question, and what we

have there, we have what's called W5 plus this verb plus subject. The W5 would be a

what, who, where, when, and etc. Okay? So, what is correct. This is the W5, the information

part. Plus. Now, usually, when you say what means something, you want to know what it

means all the time. Truth. Well, the simple present is used for truth, and the question

form of the simple present is the verb to do. If you look at this, there is no verb

to do, so we have to make a correction. So the first correction is, you got what. That's

good. You understood what. How many of these things do I need at one time? I don't know.

Eat your phone home. Okay. So we say, what. Right? Plus, I said verb to do. I'm very lazy,

so this is verb to do. Verb to do equals present, which equals always true. Yeah? Okay. So,

then we're going to say, do or does. Okay? Usually does because you want to know one

thing. Right? But do could be here. Later on when we do the next question with do, you'll

understand why I said do. Okay? So, let's get rid of this. Let's put does for now. Okay?

I'll put do, because usually you mean one thing, and the singular form is does. Okay?

What does. Now, you got means. We can't do this. Right? Why not? We can't put two verbs

together, right? So, we're going to have to get rid of this verb, and what did I say comes

next? Subject. Well, the x was the subject, so if we put this here, what does x, and then

we put mean, that's the perfect question. This is a useful information question. What

does x mean? What do you mean? Okay? Sorry. That's, later on we'll talk about that one.

It's not exactly the same here, but what does x mean? It means you told me a word, I don't

understand it, please explain it to me. Cool. Now, do you remember when I said could you

repeat that? Well, sometimes students know this, but they don't know the other words

that go with these questions, and it drives you crazy because you end up repeating stuff

or things, and they go, I know, I know, I know, and then I go, but you keep asking me

the same question. What do you mean? So, next one we're going to do here is what do you

mean? This does not mean the same thing. This means explain something to me. I don't understand.

But if somebody says, what do you mean? It's not quite the same. Remember I said doesn't

do, doesn't explain a thing. What do you mean? It means this to me. Please tell me exactly

what you're trying to explain to me. You're trying to give me information and I'm not

too sure what it means. So, what do you mean you're going to kill me? Right? You don't

care about the killing, but what do you mean by that? Really going to kill me? Or imaginary,

right? Like I'm going to be mean to you when I see you, right? Okay, what do you mean?

Right? Explain yourself, your personal feelings and thoughts. Now, I'm going to move from

that because sometimes when I say, they say, what does this mean? And then I say, well,

what do you mean? You have to explain yourself because you keep repeating it. There are a

couple of times here, and it's because of these things. Students understand what the

word means, so they don't mean mean anymore, but they don't know how to say it. What? So,

what do you say? Okay, well, you know what? Ezekiel's here. Let's use E. Ezekiel is reading

a word in the book right now, and it's this word. Fine. But, when you look at it, he's

like, it's disgusting. So, he's going to say to me, how do you pronounce X? How do you

pronounce X? It's not, what is it? He knows because he's like, he knows what it is. He

doesn't know how because he's reading this word going, what the heck is that word? So,

then I say, it's phlegm, and I will repeat phlegm. I will not explain it. I will pronounce

it. Cool? You like that? You like that? I like it. I like it. See? How do I pronounce?

So, if you sit here with students, not in their teacher life, what does it mean? Say,

how do I pronounce? Or, you can say, how, say that's you referring to the teacher, but

you can also say, okay, this is number one, but number two, you can say, how do I say

X? How do I say it? Right? Instead of X, because if you can't pronounce it, you say, how do

I say it? You're telling the person, I don't know how to say it. Can you please tell me

how to say the word? Okay? Or, pronounce. Pronounce is better because it's exact. Alright?

So, we've got pronounce, and we've got say. Cool? Now, imagine if Ezekiel wasn't reading.

See, he doesn't have his book anymore, but he wasn't reading, and he was sitting there

drinking his beer. Okay? I'm not good with beer bottles. I don't really drink too much

of it. And then, he was a little bit drunk, but he was like, how do you spell phlegm?

I don't know how to spell phlegm. I've been drinking. How do you spell it? Well, by saying,

how do you spell X? The person must tell you the letters that are in the word. Now, if

you would like to be very, very snobbish or self-important, you can say this. Oh, sorry.

Hose. We don't want to say hose. That's not a good word. How does one spell it? Or, how

would? How would one spell it? It's imaginary. How would one spell it? How does one spell

that word? Okay? Your teacher will think you are a *****hole and probably not answer your

question, but at least you can actually act like you're a smart person. So, how would

or how does one spell that? So, you don't need X, but how does one spell that? Tell

me, please. Well, snobby Ezekiel has been drinking too much beer. So, I know later on

you'll say, what is phlegm? Well, if you come to the website, you'll probably find out what

phlegm means, but you have to come. I'm not telling you. So, you're going to have to ask,

how do you pronounce it? How do you spell it? What does it mean? We got that? Is that

good? Okay, good. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yep, I'm done. Oh, you want more

useful questions? Hold on a second. For those of you who have seen some of my other videos,

this is my famous black book. In my famous black book are not lessons from English books,

English idioms. No, no. These are lessons from students, students' mistakes. So, I make

these information questions from listening to students make common mistakes and say,

hey, maybe we should do a lesson. And if you noticed, I did. How do you pronounce that?

What does that mean? How do you spell it? Here's a good one.

When you say to somebody, when would you use it? Or, when do you use it? There's a reason

for this. They're not quite the same, although they are similar. Please check the lesson

on similar and same. Okay? When do you use the word? The person is asking for the proper

context. Okay, so when you say, when do you use the word? You're asking for the proper

context. When you say, when would you use that word? They're asking you personally,

when would you use it? I know the context, when do you use it? But, when would you use

it? And I might go, well, you know what? You're right. The proper context would be here, but

I would never use it here. I would probably use it here, here, and here. That makes it

personal and gives you much more detailed information. See, I told you this would be

useful information. You've got, oh, when do you use that word? And when would you use

it, teacher? That means the teacher gives you personal experience and will help improve

your English. Cool? You like that? Okay, so we've got that one. Oops, not context. Context.

All right? All right. So, now, I gave you the other one before, when Nadekia told you,

so that was another one, so that's three. Go four. Hear that? The police are coming

to get me. Okay, four. We have, could you repeat? Now, that's a great question. Because

could you repeat that? It tells me you were paying attention, but maybe you need to hear

it again, or maybe you want to write it down. All right? So, you can say, could you repeat

that? I'd like to write it down. Or, could you repeat that? I'm not sure of what you

said. All right? That's good. That's good. Now, I'm going to get rid of those ones. I

can never lose this book. It's full of information. All your mistakes, which we will improve and

make you better, faster, stronger. Six million dollar man, baby. All right. Remember I said,

what did you mean by that? We did that one before, the what do, what does it mean? Okay?

So, just to clarify, it just makes more of a mess. Here we go. What does X mean? Quickly,

to make sure, because I don't think I gave it to you properly. This one is explain yourself.

And this one, explain the word. Are we good? I hope we're cool. Okay? So, we've got those

two. Make sure you get them, because I didn't really put them apart. So, this one is explain

yourself, what you mean, the other one, the word. And finally, I wouldn't say the piece

de resistance, but a lot of times I ask students things. Well, this one question, because you're

in a school, you see the student for the first time, and you say to the student, how long

have you been here? And how long will you be staying? Students usually get it confused,

and they'll say, like, two weeks more, no matter what you say. How long have you been

here? Two weeks more. When are you leaving? Two weeks more. How long will you be staying?

Two weeks more. Now I'm confused. I'm going to make it easy for you. You'll have this

one, this one, and sometimes this one. Sorry. Almost forgot. And then this one. Right? Let's

do, it's called messy finger. Okay. When somebody says will have, right? How long will you have

been here for? You need to respond with will have and been, because this is about, let's

do the eraser thing here again, shall we? This is about total time. So they say, and

you have to answer, okay? So you want to answer with this one. So as I said, how long have

you been here? How long have you been here for, you know, how long have you been in Canada?

You can say as of June. So if it's January, you go to June. I will have been here for

six months. And then you give the total time. Okay? Have is past. I know because you hear

past the present, but really, when somebody says have, they mean basically past time.

And you want to also respond with the past time. So somebody says, how long have you,

how long have you stayed in Canada? See, how long have you stayed in Canada? You say, I

have been here for two weeks, six months, whatever. That's only past time. It has nothing

to do with now. Even though we're talking the present, they're taking the present and

going back. So I've been in Canada for 20 years. Okay? Past time. Okay? Will or going

to is for future reference. And you want to, once again, use the words and respond with

them. So how long are you going to stay in Canada? I'm going to stay here for six more

weeks. See, more means plus. Or I will stay here for another two weeks. Another means

plus. So here we have, I will stay here for another. So you can use another or more to

indicate future when you respond. I'm going to stay here for, I will stay here for another.

And that will indicate future, a main plus. All right? Don't say plus, two plus months

or more plus months. Crazy. Okay? So that's what we're going to say here. Have is for

past time. So I have, and then use the past tense, eds. I have been here for, I've stayed

here for blah, blah, blah. And will have, give the total time. Okay? Next week, I will

have been here for six months. And that means from January to June or what have you. Yeah?

So good. So I've given you some interesting information questions. In this case, these

are responses, answers to questions. And when you hear these things in the sentence, you

have to respond by using them. Because by responding by using them, I know what you're

talking about, whether you're talking about the future, present, or the past. Cool? All

right. I like that word weather. So I'm going to probably use that in lesson one. So I'm

going to do weather. Weather, it is nobler to suffer the slings or arrows or the weather

is quite bad in Canada right now. Try and figure out what they mean. By the time you

come back, I'll probably have a lesson for you. But it's been fun having you once again.

Ezekiel is in his repose. Repose, another word. So we're going to do vocabulary soon.

Just a whole lesson of beautiful vocabulary words. Okay? He's not reading. He's drinking.

He's got glasses on, probably sunglasses. Let's give him sunglasses. He drank too much

last night. He's tired. Okay? But I've got to go. And I'm going to see you, see, at a

future time. All right? Because you're going to come back, I know for sure. All right?

And we'll have been doing this project for about over a year now. If you're seeing this

now, it's over a year. Good Lord. Maybe even five by the time you're seeing it. Who knows,

right? And I hope you have enjoyed being here with us. See? Enjoyed from the past. See how

useful it is? So, you know where to go, Ezekiel? He's had a bit to drink, so he's really drooling

right now. Okay? Go to, okay, www. where? Ing, as in English, vid, as in video,.com,

EngVid. Okay? That's where you'll find myself, and there are several other teachers looking

forward to teaching you and helping you master English. For now, I'm out. See you.