Speaking English: The easy way to ask questions

480,556 views ・ 2013-03-05

Learn English with Rebecca


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

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Asking questions is often difficult for English learners. That's because when we ask a question in English,
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we have to change the order, add 'do', 'does', or 'did', and sometimes we add a question
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tag. Hi. My name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson, I'm going to show you a very easy way to ask
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questions. Now, you can't use this method all the time, but you can certainly use this method
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some of the time, and ask a question correctly and really easily.
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How do we do this? What we do is we turn statements into questions. You take a statement -- a
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statement is a sentence. You take the sentence, you change the intonation, or the way you
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say it, and then you ask it as a question, and it becomes a question. To help you to
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understand how to do this, I'm going to first say these sentences as sentences, and then
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I'll change my intonation and show you how to ask them as questions, all right? Here we go.
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We can do this in different contexts, by the way: We can do it to show surprise, to express
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some doubt, or to ask for clarification; different types of questions and different types of
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situations. Let's take the first one: "John was arrested." This is a sentence. "John was arrested."
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If we ask it as a question -- "John was arrested?" See, you're surprised. "John was arrested?"
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Next one: "Sheila's left her job." As a question: "Sheila has left her job?"
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Next one: "You won $500." As a question: "You won $500?"
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You see that I'm kind of putting my hand out
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every time, because sometimes there is a certain amount of body language that goes along with
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this type of question, all right? You can try that for yourself if you want, and you'll sound even
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more authentic and you'll look the part.
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Next one: "Your mom gave you her credit card." That's the sentence. What would the question
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be? Change your intonation: "Your mom gave you her credit card?" Now here there's doubt
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in my voice, right? -- I don't really believe that your mom gave you her credit card. "Your mom
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gave you her credit card?"
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Next one: "You mailed my letter." That's a sentence. How do we change it to a question?
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Let's say you're asking this of someone who doesn't usually do some of the things you
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ask them to do, all right? You say: "You mailed my letter?" That's another way. Let's take... if we're asking
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for clarification: "She's getting married in May." That's a sentence or a statement.
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How do we make it into a question? "She's getting married in May?"
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"The spa is on the second floor." Question: "The spa is on the second floor?"
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Last one: "We're meeting at 6:00." Question: "We're meeting at 6:00?", or, "We're meeting at 6?"
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You're just going to take the sentence and turn it into a question by changing your intonation, all right?
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If you'd like some practice in doing this, please visit our website, www.engvid.com.
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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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Learn English for free www.engvid.com
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