{"id":73392,"date":"2020-03-24T08:53:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T08:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73392"},"modified":"2020-03-24T08:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T08:53:52","slug":"question-tags-english-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/question-tags-english-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"Question Tags | English Usage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Questions tags\u00a0<\/b>are the small questions that often come at the ends of\u00a0sentences.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You are not coming with us,\u00a0<b>are you?<\/b><\/li>\n<li>She can speak English,\u00a0<b>can\u2019t she?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Questions tags\u00a0<\/b>are used to check whether something is true, or to ask for agreement. Note that we use a negative question tag after an affirmative sentence and a non-negative question tag after a\u00a0negative sentence.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She\u00a0<b>is\u00a0<\/b>coming with us,<b>\u00a0isn\u2019t she?<\/b><\/li>\n<li>She<b>\u00a0isn\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0coming with us,<b>\u00a0is she?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that we do not use question tags after questions.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You can speak English, can\u2019t you? (BUT NOT Can you speak English, can\u2019t you?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Word structure<\/h3>\n<p>If the main sentence has an\u00a0auxiliary verb, this is repeated in the question tag.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You<b>\u00a0are<\/b>\u00a0the new manager,\u00a0<b>aren\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>you?<\/li>\n<li>She\u00a0<b>didn\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>come,\u00a0<b>did\u00a0<\/b>she?<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0<b>is\u00a0<\/b>cold,\u00a0<b>isn\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>it?<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>won\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>come,\u00a0<b>will<\/b>\u00a0he?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the main sentence has no auxiliary, the question tag has\u00a0<b>do.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You like music,\u00a0<b>don\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>you?<\/li>\n<li>She gave you a book<b>, didn\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0she?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Advanced points<\/h3>\n<p>The question tag for<b>\u00a0I am\u00a0<\/b>is<b>\u00a0aren\u2019t I?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>I am\u00a0<\/b>late,\u00a0<b>aren\u2019t I?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After<b>\u00a0let us \u2026,<\/b>\u00a0we use\u00a0<b>shall we?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Let\u2019s<\/b>\u00a0go,\u00a0<b>shall we?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>There<\/b>\u00a0can be a subject in question tags.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>There<\/b>\u00a0is something wrong,\u00a0<b>isn\u2019t there?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Negative words<\/h3>\n<p>Non-negative tags are used after sentences containing negative words like<b>\u00a0never,\u00a0no, nobody, hardly, scarcely\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0<b>little.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is\u00a0<b>little\u00a0<\/b>we can do about it,\u00a0<b>is\u00a0<\/b>there? (NOT \u2026 isn\u2019t there?)<\/li>\n<li>It is\u00a0<b>no\u00a0<\/b>good,\u00a0<b>is<\/b>\u00a0it? (NOT \u2026 isn\u2019t it?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We use<b>\u00a0it<\/b>\u00a0in question tags to refer to\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>everything.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Nothing\u00a0<\/b>can happen, can\u00a0<b>it?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In sentences with question tags, it is quite common to leave out pronoun subjects and auxiliary verbs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(It is a) nice day, isn\u2019t it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Questions tags\u00a0are the small questions that often come at the ends of\u00a0sentences. You are not coming with us,\u00a0are you? She can speak English,\u00a0can\u2019t she? Questions tags\u00a0are used to check whether something is true, or&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[129,2209,2210],"class_list":["post-73392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-question-tags","tag-tag-questions","tag-tags"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73393,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73392\/revisions\/73393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}