Grammar: questions
Lower level (A1-A2)

There is a pattern to simple questions. At the beginning of a sentence a verb is followed by a subject. Here are some examples:

Do you like chicken?
Does he live alone?
Can I use your phone?
Would you like some food?
Is she going home for Christmas?
Have you heard the news?
Has he been living here for a long time?
Will he be home later today?

The first word in the sentence is not always a main verb but is often an auxiliary verb such as ‘do’, ‘have’ and ‘can’.

You can see that this pattern works for different tenses e.g. present simple and present perfect simple and continuous.

To make the questions more complicated, you can add question words like ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘who’ e.g.

Why does he live alone? Answer: He likes peace and quiet.
Why did he leave early? Answer: He was very tired.
How is she going home for Christmas? Answer: She’s taking the train.
How did she get home last night? Answer: By taxi.
When will he be home later? Answer: About 10 o’clock.
When would you to leave? Answer: In about 30 minutes.
Who did you like most? Answer: The tall man with curly hair.
Who have you heard saying that terrible thing? Answer: Everybody at school was saying it.