Correct Use of DO / DOES / DID - Basic English Grammar - with Examples, Exercises & Quiz

Hello and welcome.

In this lesson, I am going to show you how to use ‘do’, ‘does’, and ‘did’

correctly.

I’ll first teach you the basics and then I’ll give you some usage tips that will

help you to avoid mistakes with these forms.

As always, there is a quiz at the end of the video.

So let’s begin.

Before we talk about the uses of ‘do’, ‘does’ and ‘did’, you need to know

the basic grammar rule with these forms.

The rule is: in the present, if the subject is I / You / We / They or any plural noun,

then we use ‘do’.

If the subject is He / She / It or any singular noun, then we use ‘does’.

This is when we talk about the present.

If we’re talking only about the past, then it’s very easy.

For any subject, we use ‘did’.

Alright, let’s do a quick test: in the present, what do we use with I / You / We / They or

a plural?

We use ‘do’.

And with He / She / It or a singular noun?

We use ‘does’.

What about in the past?

For any subject, we use ‘did’.

OK, let’s now talk about the first use of these three forms.

This is in making negative sentences.

To understand this, let’s first take a positive sentence: “I like ice cream.”

What is the verb here?

It’s ‘like’ – this is called the main verb because it has the main meaning in the

sentence.

So let’s make this negative.

In English, the rule for making negative sentences is that we add ‘not’ to the helping verb

in the sentence.

But wait – there’s only one verb here – ‘like’ which is the main verb.

There is no other helping verb.

So what do we do now?

Well, we add the verb ‘do’ as a helping verb in the sentence.

Then, we put ‘not’ next to it.

“I do not like ice cream.”

is the negative sentence.

In speech, we usually shorten this to ‘don’t’ – “I don’t like ice cream.”

OK, what about this?

“He plays hockey.”

Remember that for He / She / It in the present, we use ‘does’.

Since we already have an –s in ‘does’, we remove it from the main verb – we don’t

say ‘plays’, we say ‘play’ – “He does not play hockey” or “He doesn’t

play hockey.”

So the structure of a negative sentence in the present simple tense is subject + ‘do

not’ or ‘does not’ + the main verb in its base form (remember: don’t add ‘s’

to the main verb) and then the rest of the sentence.

OK, let’s do an exercise now.

Here are a few more sentences.

I want you to make them all negative.

Stop the video, think about your answers, then play the video again and check.

Alright, here are the answers: “You don’t sing very well.”, “We don’t travel to

South Korea every year.”, “They don’t live in a big house.”, “She doesn’t

want a new washing machine.”, “That piano doesn’t look old.”

Good.

Now, these sentences are all in the present tense.

Let’s quickly talk about what happens when we have past tense sentences.

Do you remember the rule for the past tense?

That’s right, we use ‘did’ for all subjects.

So we just say ‘did not’ or ‘didn’t’ plus the main verb in its base form.

So here are the past tense negative sentences – I’ve made some slight changes to make

them sound natural.

If you want, stop the video and read them to make sure you understand.

So this is the first use of ‘do’, ‘does’ and ‘did’ – making negative sentences.

Let’s now move on to the second use and this is in making questions.

Here’s an example: “I look good in this shirt.”

Let’s make this a question.

Once again, the rule is that we need an auxiliary (or helping) verb for this.

Since the sentence doesn’t have a helping verb, we’re going to use ‘do’.

In questions, we put the helping verb right at the beginning of the sentence.

So, the structure for present simple tense questions is Do or Does + the subject + the

main verb in its base form and then the rest of the sentence.

So “Do I look good in this shirt?” is the correct form.

In this sentence, the main verb is ‘look’.

Just a quick tip: when you write, don’t forget to add the question mark at the end

of a question.

Here’s another example: “He walks to school.”

How do we change this into a question?

This time, we use ‘does’ because the subject is ‘He’.

So “Does he walk to school?” is the question.

Alright, I have another exercise for you.

Here are some more sentences.

Stop the video, make questions out of these sentences, then play the video again and check.

Alright, here are the answers: “Do you speak English?”, “Do we have any homework for

tomorrow?”

Generally, in positive sentences, we use ‘some’ and in negative sentences and questions, we

use ‘any’.

Next one is “Do they eat meat?”, “Does she work for Microsoft?”, and finally, “Does

this cell phone have a camera?”

These types of questions are called yes or no questions because the answer is either

‘yes’ or ‘no’.

But to make that answer a little longer, you can repeat the helping verb ‘do’ or ‘does’.

For example, “Do I look good in this shirt?”

“Yes, you do.”

or “No, you don’t, sorry.”

“Do you speak English?”

“Yes, I do.”

or “No, I don’t.”

“Does he walk to school?”

“Yes, he does.”

or “No, he doesn’t.”

If a question asks about the past, you would use ‘did’ – “Yes, I did”, “No,

he didn’t” and so on.

This type of short answer to a yes or no question is very common in real-life conversations.

Another type of question is one that asks for information using a question word or phrase

(like what, when, where, why, how, how much etc.).

Just put this word or phrase at the beginning of the sentence before ‘do’ or ‘does’.

So: “How do I look in this shirt?”, “How many languages do you speak?”, “What homework

do we have for tomorrow?”, “Why don’t they eat meat?”, “What time does he leave

for school?”, “Where does she work?”, “What kind of camera does this cell phone

have?” etc.

OK, let’s get back to our original questions.

Now, all of these are positive.

Do you know how to make the questions negative?

Just add ‘not’ before the main verb like you see on the screen: “Do I not look good

in this shirt?”, “Do you not speak English?”

If you want to make a contraction in natural speech, then you use ‘don’t’ or ‘doesn’t’:

“Don’t I look good in this shirt?”

(that’s a very confident statement), “Don’t you speak English?”, “Doesn’t she work

for Microsoft?”

and so on.

Let’s once again go back to the original questions.

Now, up to this point, we’ve talked about questions in the present tense.

Making past tense questions is very simple.

You just use ‘did’ in the place of ‘do’ or ‘does’.

If you want, stop the video and read these questions and make sure you understand, then

play the video again and continue.

Alright, now that you know the basics, let me give you some usage tips for ‘do’,

‘does’ and ‘did’.

The first is modal verbs.

Take this sentence: “I can swim.”

What’s the main verb here?

It’s ‘swim’.

Is there a helping verb?

Yes, the verb ‘can’ is the helping verb.

So to make this sentence negative, you should not add ‘do’ to the sentence: “I don’t

can swim.” is not correct because the rule is that you add the ‘not’ to the helping

verb.

This sentence already has a helping verb – ‘can’, so you just say ‘cannot’ or ‘can’t’:

“I can’t swim.”

To make a question, once again, use the modal verb: “Can you swim?”

It’s the same thing with all the modal verbs: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may,

might and must – use the modal verb itself to make questions and negatives.

OK that’s the first point.

The second point is the case of the verb ‘be’.

This verb is a special case because it’s the only verb in the English language that

needs no helping verb.

For example: “I am a teacher.”

‘Am’ is just a present tense form of ‘be’.

To make this negative, you should not add ‘don’t’.

Instead, you just say “I am not a teacher.”

or “I’m not a teacher.”

To make this a question, you again use the verb ‘be’ itself – “Are you a teacher?”

So, with any present or past form of ‘be’ (that is am, is, are, was or were), you can

add ‘not’ right after it to make a negative, or put the form at the start of the sentence

to make a question.

OK, point number three is the ‘double-do’.

What is the double-do?

Well, we know that every sentence has a main verb.

In some sentences, ‘do’ itself is the main verb.

This is when we want to use ‘do’ to mean simply ‘to perform some action’.

For example: “I do a lot of traveling in my free time.”

Notice that ‘do’ is the main verb here.

So how we make this a negative?

Well, the rule is the same: there’s no helping verb, so we add another ‘do’ and then

put ‘not’ next to it: “I don’t do a lot of traveling in my free time.”

So what would the question form be?

It would be “Do you do a lot of traveling in your free time?”

This type of double-do is correct.

Here’s another example: “He always does his homework on time.”

Can you make a negative statement and a question from this?

Pause the video and think about it.

Then play the video again and check.

The negative would be: “He doesn’t always do his homework on time.”

And the question is “Does he always do his homework on time?”

Did you get them right?

Of course, you can easily convert the sentences to the past tense by changing ‘do’ or

‘does’ to ‘did’.

Alright, let’s turn to the last usage tip, and that is using ‘do’ for emphasis.

You may have seen these types of sentences: “I do have a car.”, “She does speak

French.”, “I did send you the email.”

and so on.

Are these forms correct?

Yes, but only in one situation: when we want to add emphasis or force to the sentence.

Imagine that I’m talking to my friend and I say: “I have a car.”

My friend says: “You’re lying.

You don’t have a car.”

That’s a stupid thing to say, but imagine my friend says that.

So I get angry that my friend just called me a liar, and I say, “No, I’m not lying.

I do have a car.”

So that ‘do’ just adds emphasis or force to the sentence.

But remember that in normal conversations, we don’t use ‘do’ in positive statements

like this.

We just say “I have a car.”

Similarly, with the second sentence: one person says, “She doesn’t speak French.”

Another person says, “She does speak French.”

to give it force.

The normal sentence for everyday conversation is “She speaks French.”

Notice that we’re saying ‘does’ because of the subject – ‘she’.

And also we remove the ‘s’ from the main verb because that ‘s’ is in ‘does’.

Next, imagine that I’m having a conversation with my boss.

My boss says, “I told you to send me that email yesterday, but you didn’t!”

And I say “No, boss.

I did send you the email!”

So that’s how we use it in the past tense.

Remember, normally, we just say “I sent you the email.”

OK, those are all the usage tips and if you’re ready, it’s now time for the quiz.

There are eight sentences on the screen.

In each one, I want you to change the sentence according to the instruction inside the round

brackets.

If it says ‘change to negative’, then make a negative sentence; if it says ‘change

to question’, then make a question out of that sentence.

Stop the video, think about your answers, then play the video again and check.

Alright, here are the answers.

How many did you get right?

Let me know in the comments section below.

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