Episode 225 Grammar Elementary Am Is Are Questions

Disclaimer

I am using an automatic transcript service as it is not possible for me to do it on my own and I cannot afford human transcription at the moment. The service claims to have about 95% accuracy, which means there will still be some mistakes, so my apologies for having a less than perfect transcript, but I hope I can afford human transcription soon and I will solve this problem. However, the service is pretty good, and the transcript is almost perfect.

Transcript

Welcome to a new episode from English plus podcast. In this episode, we will talk about grammar elementary. And in today’s episode, we will talk about how to use M is an R in questions. But before we do that, let me remind you that you can find the transcript of this episode in a link. I will leave in the description and you can also find a link to Patreon where you can become a patron of the show, support English plus podcast, and get a custom PDF practice worksheet.

[00:00:38] For every single episode we release on English plus podcast. Now, with that being said, Let’s start with the lesson and let’s learn how to create questions using M is an are. Now we learned before that we use M with, I. We use is with he, she and it, so we say, I am, he is, she is. And it is. But what if we want to make questions?

[00:01:09] If I say he is a teacher, that is a sentence. That is a statement. And we learned last time that we can also say he is not a teacher. And that is a negative, but how about questions? Well, if we want to create questions, we simply put verb to be first, and then we put the subject. So here, when we say I am, and that is a sentence or affirmative, we say, am I, and that is a question.

[00:01:38] When we say he is, if we want to make that a question, we just put his first and it becomes his hate. And the same for she is. It becomes is sheet. And for it is, it becomes, is it, and now for the others, We have you are, we are, and they are. And we do exactly the same thing. If we want to create questions, we put our first.

[00:02:07] So for you, are we say, are you, and for, we are, we say, are we, we put our first and then we say we, and then four, they are. We say, are they so very simply, this is the way to create questions using M is R but now of course, let’s take a look at how we put that in context with some examples. So let’s take a look at this example.

[00:02:34] Am I late? No, you’re on time. So here, if you look at it, we used em, before I to create a question, I’m asking, am I late? And the other person responds no, your on time, you are on time. We put verb to be after you, because in the answer, there is no question. The question was only in the first part where the person said, am I late?

[00:03:01] And now let’s take a look at another example, is your mother at home? No she’s out. So here take a look we use is first before your mother, because this is a question is your mother at home? And that is a question. The answer to that. No, she’s out. She is out. So we use is here after she, because that is the answer that is affirmative.

[00:03:28] Now for another question. Are your parents at home? Are your parents at home? So here, because it’s a question we use our first and the answer is no they’re out. So here we put our before your parents, because it’s a question. Are your parents at home? Are your parents at home? That’s the question? The answer is no, they are out there out.

[00:03:55] They are, we use our, after they. Now for another example, is it cold in your room? Is it, is it cold in your room? Yes. A little. So here we use is before it, because I’m asking a question here, is it cold in your room? And now for another example, your shoes are nice. Are they new? Are they new? So we put our before they, because it’s a question.

[00:04:28] Are they new now pay attention, not to make this common mistake when you want to create questions with verb to be. And that is when you put the rest of the sentence in between, between the subject and the verb. So here, of course we said, is she at home or is your mother at home? And both of these are fine, but pay attention, not to say.

[00:04:52] Is at home. Your mother, we don’t say is at home, your mother, we don’t put the rest of the sentence between his and the subject we say is, which is verb to be the subject. And then the rest of the sentence. So don’t say is at home, your mother, that’s wrong. And we say, for example, are they new? Are your shoes new?

[00:05:13] And of course they’re fine, but we don’t say our new, your shoes. We don’t put new or the rest of the sentence between verb to be and the subject. So with that being said, let’s move on to talk about questions with verb to be with M is an R, but this time we will use w H questions. Now, when we want to use wh questions with vert, TBI, nothing changes.

[00:05:40] Except that we use the w H question first, and then we put the same pattern we put verb to be before the subject. So here we say, where is your mother? Is she at home? Now we know, is she at home? That’s fine. We put his first, she after and the rest of the sentence, but we didn’t change that when we used, where is your mother?

[00:06:04] Because we just put where at the beginning, and then we put is before your mother, because this is a question we don’t say where your mother is. That’s not a question. Where is your mother? And now for another example, where are you from Canada? I’m from Canada. So here again, we used where this time, but nothing changes in the form of the question we put verb to be first.

[00:06:30] Where are you from? Not where you are from, where are you from? And now for another example, what color is your car? It’s red. What color is your car? So here we didn’t say what color your car is. Because that is not a question we put verb to be before the subject, which is your car in this case. So what color is your car?

[00:06:56] It’s red. And now for another example, how old is Joe? How old is Joe is comes before the subject, which is Joe, in this case, how old is Joe? He’s 24. How old is Joe? He’s 24. And now for another example, how are your parents? Are they well, how are your parents? Are they well, so here we use the wh question, which is how in this case, First, and then we use the same pattern verb to becomes before the subject, in this case, the subject is your parents.

[00:07:35] So we say, how are your parents, how verb to be are then the subject, your parents. And that is the question. Are they well, and now for another example, these shoes are nice. How much are they? How much is the question word? And then when we want to use the form or where we want to form the question we use verb to be first, how much are they?

[00:08:01] Not how much they are. And now let’s take a look at this example with why this hotel isn’t very good. Why is it so expensive? Why is it so expensive? So remember we use the wh question, but by just using the w H question, it doesn’t mean that we don’t put the question in the proper form or in the correct form.

[00:08:27] You still use the question in the proper or the correct form even when you use the wh questions. So we don’t say why it is so expensive and we think, Oh, that is a question because I used Y yes, of course you used Y which is a question word, but you still have. To change the structure to make it a proper or a correct question grammatically.

[00:08:51] And in this case, obviously we are talking about putting verb to be first before the subject. Why is it so expensive? Not why it is so expensive. And now, since we talked about w H questions, let’s talk about their short forms with is because to be honest, people usually use the short form when they have wh questions with is so here, of course, what is, whatever the question may be.

[00:09:20] What is your favorite color? What is your favorite sport, et cetera. But what is, when we say it, we can use the short form instead of what is, we can use the short form of ears and say what’s. So what is can also be what and who is. Can be who’s who is, can be who’s apostrophe S that’s the short form and how is can also be shortened.

[00:09:47] And we can say it house. How apostrophe S how’s. So how is can be housed and where is can be where’s where apostrophe S where’s. Where is can be where’s. So for example, we can ask the question. What is the time, or usually in spoken English, nobody says, what is the time that is so formal? And to be honest, sometimes strange when people use the full form, they mostly use the short form.

[00:10:22] So they say what’s the time? Not what is the time? What’s the time. And when someone asks a question, like, where is Lucy? They don’t usually say, where is Lucy? They say, where’s Lucy where apostrophe S where’s Lucy or who is that man? Instead of saying, who is that, man? We can simply say, who’s that man. Who’s who apostrophe S that man, who’s that man.

[00:10:53] How is your father? How is your father? We can say that in the short form by just saying, how’s your father, how’s your father. And now let’s move on to talk about the final point I would like to discuss with you today. And that is giving short answers. Now, what do we mean by short answers? We mean by that, that we can use a short form of the answer.

[00:11:19] Not to repeat the same words that we had in the question. For example, if somebody asks you, are you tired? Of course you can say, yes, I am tired if you are tired, but you don’t have to say the whole thing back again. That’s not natural people. Don’t usually say that if somebody asks you, are you tired? You can simply say, yes, I am.

[00:11:45] Instead of saying yes, I am tired can say, yes I am. And that is a short answer now, to be honest, in general, in spoken English, people just say yes or no, they don’t have to say yes, I am. No, I am not. But for grammatical purposes, this is the short answer form of verb to be. When we have a question with verb to be the answer can include verb to be alone without the rest of the sentence.

[00:12:12] And that is enough, but pay attention here. Yes, we can use the short form, but we don’t use the contraction form. We don’t say yes, I’m that’s wrong. We cannot say yes. I’m. If it is a short answer, we can contract I’m if I want to continue if I want to say something after it, but I don’t say it alone like that.

[00:12:35] And now for another example, are you hungry? Are you hungry? And you can say, no, I’m not hungry. Of course you can say that. And that is correct. But as I told you, you don’t have to repeat every single word that you have in the question. Imagine if the question is bigger and you will have to repeat every single word in the question, that would be too long for no good reason.

[00:12:58] You can use the short answer. And when someone asks you, are you hungry? You can say, no, I’m not. And as you notice here, when we say I’m not because it’s not in affirmative and I’m the short or the contraction form of verb to be here is not the last word in the sentence. So we can use it in the contracted form.

[00:13:20] We can say, no, I am not, or no, I’m not. And now let’s move on to another example is your friend English. You can say, yes, he is English. You can say the whole thing or yes, my friend is English, but you don’t have to, you can use the short answer and say, yes, he is. Instead of saying, yes, he is English. The whole thing you can simply say yes, he is.

[00:13:45] But here again, remember. That we don’t use he’s in this case, we don’t say yes he’s because it is the last word in this sentence. So we can not contract this word and use the short form of verb to be here. And now let’s move on to another question. Are these, your keys? Are these your keys? Yes, they are my keys.

[00:14:08] Of course. We don’t have to say that. You can guess now we can get rid of my keys and we can only answer by saying yes, they are. Instead of saying, yes, they are my keys. Yes, they are is more than enough. And of course, again, we can not say yes there. Yes, they are not. Yes, there and period, that’s wrong. And now for our last example, That’s my seat.

[00:14:32] You are sitting somewhere and someone comes to you and said, that’s my seat. And you say, no, it is not your seat. Of course, you don’t have to say your seat here. You can use the short answer and you can only say, no, it is not. But since here we have, it is not. We can say, no, it is not. Or no, it’s not. Or we can say no, it isn’t.

[00:14:57] So with that being said, I hope you understand now how we can use M is an R to make questions or what we call obviously, verb to be. Let me remind you that you can find a transcript of this episode in a link. I will leave in the description and you can also find a link that will take you to Patreon, where you can support English plus cast by becoming a patron, and then you will get PDF practice worksheets for every single episode.

[00:15:23] We create, this is your host, Danny. Thank you very much for listening to another episode from English plus podcast. I will see you next time.