{"id":2772,"date":"2013-05-28T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2013-05-15T20:15:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T00:15:51","slug":"tag-questions-in-english-are-easy-to-make-arent-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/tag-questions-in-english-are-easy-to-make-arent-they\/","title":{"rendered":"Tag questions in English are easy to make, aren\u2019t they?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a number of ways to ask questions in English.\u00a0 You can ask a simple yes or no question: Do you like milk?<\/em> Or you can ask a wh- questions: Where is the milk? Another way to ask questions in English is by using tag questions: You bought milk yesterday, didn\u2019t you?<\/em> Tag questions get there name from the fact that the question is tagged on (or put on<\/em>) the end of a sentence that didn\u2019t start out as a questions.\u00a0 Yes\/no and wh- questions start out as questions from the beginning of the sentence, but tag questions allow for a speaker or writer to change their statement into a question part way through their thought, by just tagging the question on the end.<\/p>\n

In order to figure out how to make tag questions, let\u2019s look at a few simple sentences:<\/p>\n

There are flowers growing in the garden.<\/p>\n

Jess loves to cook.<\/p>\n

Owen hasn\u2019t been to Mexico.<\/p>\n

The test can\u2019t be too hard.<\/p>\n

There were many people there.<\/p>\n

He won\u2019t help us.<\/p>\n

All of these statements can be turned into questions by adding tags.<\/p>\n

There are flowers growing in the garden, aren\u2019t there?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jess loves to cook, doesn\u2019t she?<\/em><\/p>\n

Owen hasn\u2019t been to Mexico, has he?<\/em><\/p>\n

The test can\u2019t be too hard, can it?<\/em><\/p>\n

There were many people there, weren\u2019t there?<\/em><\/p>\n

He won\u2019t help us, will he?<\/em><\/p>\n

Looking at these examples we can learn a few important things about making tag questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Tags have the verb \u2018to be\u2019 or an auxiliary verb (have, had, can, may, will) or the verb \u2018to do\u2019.<\/li>\n
  2. Tags for positive (or affirmative) statements are negative and tags for negative statements are positive.<\/li>\n
  3. The answer to tag questions is either: yes, no, or I don\u2019t know. So in a way tag questions are just another type of yes\/no question.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Also be sure to note that just as when asking other questions in English you should ask tag questions with rising intonation at the end of the sentence.<\/p>\n

    There is another way to ask tag questions in English too and that is by making a statement and then adding a word(s) of confirmation to the end of the statement.\u00a0 Here are some examples:<\/p>\n

    Jim is a nice person, right?<\/em><\/p>\n

    I owe you $20, correct?<\/em><\/p>\n

    The play was wonderful, don\u2019t you agree?<\/em><\/p>\n

    Beth is going to be late so we should get started, okay?<\/em><\/p>\n

    These tag questions also require rising intonation and can be answered with yes, no, or I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are a number of ways to ask questions in English.\u00a0 You can ask a simple yes or no question: Do you like milk? Or you can ask a wh- questions: Where is the milk? Another way to ask questions in English is by using tag questions: You bought milk yesterday, didn\u2019t you? Tag questions…<\/p>\n

    Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[134956],"tags":[273872,273873],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-english-grammar","tag-tag","tag-tag-questions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2783,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}