Question Tags | Easily Speak Like a Native!*

266,656 views ・ 2017-04-04

English with Lucy


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:10
Hello, everyone.
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And welcome to English with Lucy.
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Today I've got a grammar lesson for you.
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A lot of you have asked for this one because
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I did mention going into further detail about this topic
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in the previous video.
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If you want to watch that one,
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then you can click right here.
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Today we're going to be talking about question tags.
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If you learn how to appropriately
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understand and use question tags,
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You're going to...you're going to
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a) sound more like a native speaker when you speak,
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and b) be able to understand native speaker when they speak to you.
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So it's really really important thing to learn.
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So this lesson is going to help you
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with your English grammar and your English speaking,
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Happy talking!
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Right. Let's get started with the lesson.
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So what are question tags?
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Oh, that was one there.
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So a question tag is a very short question
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placed at the end of a statement.
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They are used when asking for two things.
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And these two things are
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1) confirmation
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and 2) agreement.
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So in order to better understand native speakers,
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you need to listen to their intonation
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when they use question tags.
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So let's cover this first
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and then move on to how they're formed.
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So let's do this one.
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It means, I know you like cake,
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I'm just trying to confirm the fact that you like cake.
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I'm not sure if you like cake.
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I'm not sure about what the answer will be,
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so I'm checking the fact again.
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I want to know the answer I'm not sure.
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I'm making conversation,
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I'm confirming something that I've already known.
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See the difference?
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So it's somthing that's really really simple,
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but I still have a lot of students that get really really confused with question tags.
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So let's clarify this now.
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Now, so those are the negative ones.
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There are just a couple of exceptions.
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The first exception is with "am".
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which you can say,
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but it sounds very very formal.
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Now statements using
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are all treated as negative statements.
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So at first glance,
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it might look like a positive statement,
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and a positive question tag.
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But you need to make sure
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that you see the negative word before it.
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05:41
OK, guys. Your homework today is
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to write in the comments three statements with question tags.
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Using what we've learnt today,
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and I want you to make me laugh.
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I want you to make them as funny as possible.
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So see if you can do that.
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