Speaking English: The easy way to ask questions

Asking questions is often difficult for English learners. That's because when we ask a question in English,

we have to change the order, add 'do', 'does', or 'did', and sometimes we add a question

tag. Hi. My name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson, I'm going to show you a very easy way to ask

questions. Now, you can't use this method all the time, but you can certainly use this method

some of the time, and ask a question correctly and really easily.

How do we do this? What we do is we turn statements into questions. You take a statement -- a

statement is a sentence. You take the sentence, you change the intonation, or the way you

say it, and then you ask it as a question, and it becomes a question. To help you to

understand how to do this, I'm going to first say these sentences as sentences, and then

I'll change my intonation and show you how to ask them as questions, all right? Here we go.

We can do this in different contexts, by the way: We can do it to show surprise, to express

some doubt, or to ask for clarification; different types of questions and different types of

situations. Let's take the first one: "John was arrested." This is a sentence. "John was arrested."

If we ask it as a question -- "John was arrested?" See, you're surprised. "John was arrested?"

Next one: "Sheila's left her job." As a question: "Sheila has left her job?"

Next one: "You won $500." As a question: "You won $500?"

You see that I'm kind of putting my hand out

every time, because sometimes there is a certain amount of body language that goes along with

this type of question, all right? You can try that for yourself if you want, and you'll sound even

more authentic and you'll look the part.

Next one: "Your mom gave you her credit card." That's the sentence. What would the question

be? Change your intonation: "Your mom gave you her credit card?" Now here there's doubt

in my voice, right? -- I don't really believe that your mom gave you her credit card. "Your mom

gave you her credit card?"

Next one: "You mailed my letter." That's a sentence. How do we change it to a question?

Let's say you're asking this of someone who doesn't usually do some of the things you

ask them to do, all right? You say: "You mailed my letter?" That's another way. Let's take... if we're asking

for clarification: "She's getting married in May." That's a sentence or a statement.

How do we make it into a question? "She's getting married in May?"

"The spa is on the second floor." Question: "The spa is on the second floor?"

Last one: "We're meeting at 6:00." Question: "We're meeting at 6:00?", or, "We're meeting at 6?"

You're just going to take the sentence and turn it into a question by changing your intonation, all right?

If you'd like some practice in doing this, please visit our website, www.engvid.com.

You can do a quiz on this, and many other topics in English. Good luck with your English. Bye for now.

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