Questions & Auxiliaries
Level B1 · Questions & Auxiliaries
English marks a question by inverting the subject and an auxiliary verb — moving the auxiliary in front of the subject — rather than just changing intonation or freely reordering words, as many other languages allow. If the sentence has no other auxiliary or modal already, English adds do/does/did purely to make that inversion possible: You like coffee → Do you like coffee? (there's no auxiliary to invert, so do steps in).
Two ways to build a direct question, all needing an auxiliary or modal before the subject:
- Yes/no questions: auxiliary/modal + subject + base verb — Do you like tea? Is she working? Have you finished? Can he swim?
- Wh-questions: question word + auxiliary + subject + verb — Where do you live? What is she doing? — but when the question word is itself the subject, there's no inversion and no do: Who called you? (not Who did call you?)
An indirect (embedded) question sits inside a longer, more polite sentence — Could you tell me…, Do you know…, I wonder… — and it drops the inversion, going back to statement word order: Where is the station? becomes Could you tell me where the station is (not where is the station). The question mark stays only if the whole sentence is still a question (Could you tell me…?); a statement like I wonder where the station is needs none.
The most common mistake is adding do when another auxiliary or modal is already there: Do you can swim? is wrong — can already inverts on its own: Can you swim? A second frequent error: keeping question word order inside an indirect question — Could you tell me where is the station? is wrong; once it's embedded, it goes back to statement word order: Could you tell me where the station is?
Look for wh-words (who, what, where, when, why, how) opening a question, do/does/did with no other auxiliary present, and polite openers like Could you tell me…, Do you know…, I wonder… introducing an indirect question.