How To Ask Great Questions in English

well hey there i’m emma from

english and today’s lesson is an

exciting one we’re going to perfect your

english questions so we’ll look at the

form and the structure of questions to

get simple quick answers

more complex and detailed answers

and the best types of questions to

politely ask permission or to get

someone to help you any questions

didn’t think so let’s get into the

lesson

[Music]

but first a quick quiz are you focused

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yeah

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a significant improvement in your

english

six months

12 months two years

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the way you ask your questions

influences how much information that

someone gives you when they answer

so closed questions will give you a

simple answer we often call them yes or

no questions because the answer doesn’t

need any detail it just needs a simple

yes or a no take this simple sentence as

an example

she is eating pizza so looking at it is

going to help us to review the structure

of english questions it has a subject an

auxiliary verb a main verb and some

additional information in the sentence

in this case a noun now i’m sure you can

probably think of how we make a question

out of this sentence right we switch the

auxiliary verb and the subject

is she eating pizza

simple huh so with closed questions we

start with an auxiliary verb

or a modal verb which i’m going to talk

about a little later on in the lesson

but there are three main types of

axillary verbs we have be

have and do you also know that each of

these auxiliary verbs have their own

past tense forms their present tense

forms

so these auxiliary verbs actually help

you to form the tense of your question

and they impact the way that your main

verb shows up in your question is he

drinking coffee

was she working this morning

so you might notice that the verb be

here is used for continuing actions the

continuous tense so our verb is in ing

form

and that’s specifically because of our

auxiliary verb have you cleaned the car

has she slept in again

have is the axillary verb that’s used

for present and past perfect so the verb

that follows

is in the past participle form does she

work from home

did they walk to work today

do helps us to form questions in the

simple tenses

so with the simple tenses we’re just

using our base verb after your auxiliary

verb you follow a basic sentence

structure by adding the subject which is

you we they he she

then the main verb comes next and that

can be any verb at all and after all of

that comes all of the extra additional

information that you need to include is

she eating pizza were they sleeping last

night did you watch the movie have you

finished your work

so you can see this structure really

clearly can’t you auxiliary verb subject

main verb and then any additional

information

the word order is really important here

i often see my students switching the

auxiliary verb and the subject around

which isn’t grammatically correct this

is going to be a problem for you in more

formal situations or if you’re sitting

an english exam because it’s incorrect

but the reality is you’re also going to

hear native english speakers

switching that word order especially

when they’re speaking informally she’s

going

same as is she going and then of course

when we’re using question tags the rules

are a little different too she’s going

isn’t she she’s going right

you can check out an entire lesson about

question tags that i made right up here

yeah

so all of these questions questions that

require just a yes or a no a simple

answer they’re useful to help you

confirm information to get details

quickly but they’re not really great at

helping you to find out detailed

information or to have really

interesting deep conversations

this is where we need open-ended

questions because they allow us to ask

for details descriptions to dive deeper

into a conversation the structure is

really similar to a closed question

which is great but you’ve got to add

your question word right

and it’s easiest to remember all of the

question words by remembering

five w’s

and

a h

so annoying that there’s one h so much

nicer to have five w’s who what when

where why

and

how when you ask about a person you use

who

who did she go to the concert with

but when you want to know about an

activity

you would use what

what did she do last night

when you want to understand the action

in relation to time you use

when

when did she go to the concert

for location it’s

where

where did she go last night

to find out the reason that someone did

something or something happened we use

why

why did she go to the concert

and you can use how to find the solution

for something

how did she get to the concert

but open questions are my favorite types

of questions because they’re so great

for conversation when you learn to

master them it’s not just yes or no this

or that there’s so much more space for

detail and extra ideas now i’ve got a

tip to help you remember the word order

in questions right to remember the

structure of english questions and i

want you to try and remember these

acronyms

for closed questions and for quick

answers remember as v

auxiliary verb subject verb and

additional information for open

questions and longer more detailed

answers remember quasi question word

auxiliary verb

subject verb and additional information

now closed and open questions are great

when it comes to getting information but

what about when you want to ask a

question to get someone to do something

for you you’re making a request right

and your chances for getting someone to

do something for you increase quite

significantly if you ask politely so

let’s see what we need to do to ask

politely can i use your phone

you’ve got to ask politely right and

there is a really clear way to help

rephrase your questions in english to

make them more polite

a direct question gets the information

that you want but sometimes in some

context it sounds really blunt

and that’s when you can use an indirect

question there are many many ways to

indirectly ask someone to do something

in english but i’ve got three to share

with you today

could i please

would you mind

and do you know

so we can add all of these to the

beginning of our questions to help make

them sound a little more polite

would you mind if i used your phone oh

sure

so let’s look at those two sentences

again

can i use your phone

this question is the same structure as a

closed question isn’t it but we’re using

a modal auxiliary verbs modal verbs are

auxiliary verbs too so you’re gonna get

a short sharp yes or no answer to that

question

could i please use your phone so we’re

adding could instead of can it softens

the request and of course by adding

please it also elevates the level of

politeness the second polite phrase is

would you mind so this is generally used

when you want someone to do something

for you

would you mind making dinner

would you mind taking me to work

tomorrow

notice the changing form of that verb to

the continuous ing form

now we can also use would you mind in

the same way that we would say

could i please to ask permission for

something but when we do that we need to

add the word if

would you mind if i used your phone

would you mind if i had the last piece

of cake would you mind is like

would you be upset

if i did something so you’re checking to

be polite what time does the bus leave

this is a really blunt direct question

and if you’re interrupting someone to

ask that question it can sound quite

rude

but by adding

do you know

you can soften your tone you can make

the question more polite

do you know what time the bust leaves

there are some small little changes to

take note of here can you see them

we remove the auxiliary verb and the

verb changes to the third person

singular form you can make this sentence

more polite

by adding

do you know if or do you know whether

do you know if she’s coming to the party

so next time you want to politely ask

for permission to do something

or you want someone to do something for

you

or you want to ask for some more

information politely then just remember

the three important phrases you learned

in today’s lesson could i please

would you mind

do you know

all right let’s do a little error

correction together just to make sure

that everything you learnt during this

lesson stays put in your mind i’ve got

three questions that need short answers

and the sentences are not quite right

either the word order’s mixed up or

maybe i’ve used the wrong auxiliary verb

i want you to help me fix them she’s

drinking coffee

is she drinking coffee

last night were they party

were they partying last night

did you yesterday go to work

did you go to work yesterday

remember those acronyms

the next three sentences require longer

answers they’re open questions

but

the question words are missing and i

need your help

who

did he play football with

when did they play football

where did they play football

hopefully that wasn’t too hard but in

this last part of the challenge i’ve got

to ask you to change these direct

questions into