Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Question Tags

A question tag is a declarative statement  is turned into a question by adding an interrogative fragment (the "tag"). For example, in the sentence "You're John, aren't you?", the statement "You're John" is turned into a question by the tag "aren't you". 

frequently used in spoken English when you want s.o. to agree or disagree. They can be an indicator of politeness, emphasis or irony. 

Form:

positive statement ->question tag negative - You are Tom, aren't you?
negative statement->question tag positive - He isn't Joe, is he?


With auxiliary verbs

They’ve gone away for a few days, haven’t they?
They weren’t here, were they?

Without auxiliary verbs

I said that, didn’t I?
You don’t recognise me, do you?

With modal verbs

They couldn’t hear me, could they?

With ‘I am’

I’m the fastest, aren’t I?
I am not good, am I?

There are 2 kind of question tag based on the intonation whether we are asking a real question, or just using the question tag to keep the conversation flowing. See below:

Real question - rising intonation

You will do it quickly, won't you?


Checking information or making conversation - falling intonation

We've seen that film, haven't we?

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