2. Paco enjoyed Chicago a lot, didn't he?

We're sure that you have heard lots of question tags in English. They are not difficult, are they? Read the exercises of this section carefully and you will be able to use question tags easily, won't you?


Icono IDevice Curiosity

 

Springfield (Illinois State): Abraham Lincoln's resting place

 

Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the United States.
By Alexander Gardner. Public domain.

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln had been a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and twice an unsuccessful candidate for election to the U.S. Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Six days after the large-scale surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.

Taken from Wikipedia.

 


Icono IDevice Listening comprehension task
Listen to this video about question tags and say if the questions below are true or false:
1) Questions tags are added at the beginning of the sentence.
2) We use questions tags to check if something is true.
3) We don't use questions tags to ask the listener to agree with what we have said.
Complete the sentences with the missing information:
4) If the main sentence is positive, the verb in the question tag is _______. And if the main sentence is negative, the question tag is ______.
5) When the main sentence contains __________________( have, will, can, could, etc.), we repeat the auxiliary verb in the question tag.
6) When the main sentence doesn't contain an auxiliary verb, the question tag uses the verb ________(in present simple) or ____ (in simple past ) .
7) If the subject of the sentence is nothing, everything, something and anything, we use _____ as the subject in the tag.
8) With ________________, we use tags will you/can you, would you. For example: Help me with this, can you?



Icono de iDevice Reflexión

Question tags are very common in English

They are placed at the end of a sentence and they ask for confirmation: Am I right? or Do you agree with me?

Watch the video below to gain a wider idea of how to form question tags.

 

 

Icono de iDevice Solved exercise

1) It's not raining now, __________?

2) Your friend Mary likes pizza, __________?

3) You don't know who the most intelligent person in the class is, __________?

4) Paco is  visiting Chicago now, __________?

5) Come with me to the supermarket, __________?

6) His classmates haven't failed the exam, __________?

Write the correct question tag to finish the questions above.

Intonation in question tags

We can change the meaning of a tag question with our voice's intonation. With rising intonation, it sounds like a real question. But if our intonation falls, it sounds more like a statement that doesn't require a real answer:

  INTONATION
  
You don't know where Lincoln was born, do you? / rising real question
Springfield is a beautiful town, isn't it? \ falling not a real question
Icono de IDevice de pregunta Self-Assessment activity
Complete the sentences below with the appropriate question tag.
 
1) Paco is visiting Chicago, __________?
  
a) isn't he?
b) does he?

2) Your father shouldn't have said that, __________?
  
a) would he?
b) should he?

3) Your sister would have passed the test if she had studied harder, __________?
  
a) would she?
b) wouldn't she?

4) The children weren't at school yesterday morning, __________?
  
a) were they?
b) was they?

Icono IDevice Important

Question tags may imply politeness

We often use question tags to ask for information or help, starting with a negative statement. This is quite a polite way of making a request. For example, instead of saying Where is the toilet? or a bit more formal way Do you know where the toilet is?, we could say: You wouldn't know where the toilet is, would you?, which sounds more polite.

Toilet, bathroom, men's, ladies', rest room, ...
By Simon Scott. Creative Commons.

The Spanish construction to translate the question tags is: ¿verdad?, ¿no es así?, ¿eh?

He should study harder, shouldn't he?

Él debería estudiar más, ¿verdad?


Icono IDevice Further knowledge

Information about the question tags with explanations in Spanish.

Try to do these exercises about question tags to improve your knowledge about this grammar point.

Exercise 1
 Exercise 2
 Exercise 3
Exercise 4
 Exercise 5
 Exercise 6

Have a look here to check some information about the question tags in English.

Watch this video about the President of the United States who abolished slavery in the States.

 


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