English Grammar - Tag Questions

Hi there, my name is Ronnie and you are watching this lesson so you can learn English. Right? Good? Yeah.

Alright, today we're going to learn about a very confusing thing in English called tag questions.

I'm here to help you make it easier. If you've studied tag questions before, there's going to be three different options of what you should say to agree or disagree with someone.

I'm going to teach you one easy way to do it so that you can just use this answer all the time. It's that easy.

First of all, making the tag questions. This is pretty easy. The difficult part is how to answer the tag questions.

So let's come up with a couple tag questions. First one.

Whoops. Now, you are from India, so what we need to do is you have to try to fill in the tag question at the end.

This is how you do this. If this is positive, we're just going to use the negative and the same subject, but we're going to switch the position.

So what's the negative of "are"? It's "aren't". And the beginning goes with the end. So you say to the person, "You're from India, aren't you?"

Let's try another one. That's funny. So let's do this one backwards. We're going to put "you" at the end of it.

So, this is positive, so we must use the negative here. What's the negative of "like"? "Like not".

"You like pizza, not like you?" Now, if we were living in the time of Shakespeare, that would be awesome. We're not living in the time of Shakespeare, thank God.

So, does anyone know what we have to use instead of "like"? We have to use the lovely auxiliary verb "do".

"You like pizza." So we can either use "do", "does", "doesn't", or "don't". Those are our four options.

What do you use with "you"? We use "do". The negative is "don't". So you're going to say, "You like pizza, don't you?"

This is another one of the verbs that we don't say "smell not". We have to use the auxiliary verb "do".

"You smell lovely." We put the "you" here. And this is positive. We're going to make it a negative. "Don't you?"

Let's try another one. Let's use something different other than "you" this time.

"They have a baby." Now, you can say "have not", but it's better to use the auxiliary verb "do" again.

If you look in a grammar book, they would write "have not", but we don't use that in Canada and North America,

and it's very, very old school, old style to be used in Britain nowadays.

So, we're going to use the same idea. This is positive. We're going to use the same verb here as here,

and we're going to use the negative "don't they".

So, some of the verbs in English we have to change to the auxiliary verb.

Let's do a few more just to help you with this.

"He is smart." Yay, toot toot.

So, once again, this verb is positive. We must change it to negative, and we're keeping the same subject.

The subject goes at the end, and we're going to use the negative of "is", which is "isn't".

So, we have "are", "you", "is he", "aren't", "isn't".

Can you do this one? "She has a car."

So, this does not change.

If you can remember the rule for "have" or "has", we have to use the auxiliary verb "do",

but what do we use with "she" or "he"?

We don't say "do she", we have to say "doesn't she".

As long as we use "she" or "he", we have to say "doesn't she" or "doesn't he".

Let's do some more of these.

Sometimes people ask you a negative question, like this.

And they always look surprised when they ask you this.

"You aren't from USA."

This word is in the negative, so we must change this to the positive.

One more. "We shouldn't drink pop."

"Pop" is the Canadian word that we use for soda.

In America, they'll say "soda pop", and in Canada, we say "pop".

It just means fizzy drink, if you like that word.

It's not juice, it's like Coke or Pepsi.

So, "We shouldn't drink pop."

This again is negative, and we're going to write the positive.

So, an easy rule.

If this is positive, your tag has to be negative.

The subject doesn't change.

What does change sometimes, though, is the verb.

Some of the verbs, you have to use an auxiliary verb.

"Do", "don't", "does" or "doesn't".

So, that's fairly easy to understand the questions.

The difficult part is the answer, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

So, let's take our first question.

Now, if someone said to me, "You're from India, aren't you?"

"Uh, no."

I want to say, "No."

That's the easy answer.

"You're from India, aren't you?"

"No."

So, we can say, "No, I'm not."

If you want to make it really, really easy, just say, "No."

"You're from America, aren't you?"

"No."

And smile.

If you want to, you're going to use this, "No, I'm not."

If we look at number four, "You aren't from USA, are you?"

Huh, how confusing.

"You aren't from USA."

So, "I'm not from America."

What would I say?

"You aren't from USA, are you?"

If I said, "Yes, I am."

That means that this answer is wrong.

"You aren't from USA, are you?"

"Yes, I am from USA."

"I'm not from USA."

So, I'm going to say, "No, you aren't from USA."

"You aren't from USA."

"No, I'm not."

"We shouldn't drink pop, should we?"

If you agree with this, you're going to say, "No."

If you disagree, you're going to say, "Yes."

The hardest part is deciding if you're going to say, "Yes" or "No."

That's up to you.

So, when we make the tag questions, it's pretty easy answering them.

The ending part is difficult.

To make it easy, just do as natural speakers do and just say, "Yes" or "No" and smile.

That will help you a lot.

All right.

You had fun, didn't you?

Bye.