Lesson 55: Unit 53 - Tag Questions
In this lesson you learn how tag questions ("isn't it?") are formed in English – when the sentence is positive, the tag is negative, and vice versa.
About this lesson
In this lesson you will learn how tag questions are formed and used in English. You will master the technique of adding short question phrases to the end of statements by understanding the basic rule: positive sentence → negative tag, and vice versa. You will see the important exception with "I am" and practise different auxiliary verbs (be, can, do/does, have). You will work with an authentic dialogue between two speakers commenting on the weather, technology and family.
40 minutes
What you'll learn
- Understand and apply the basic rule for tag questions: positive → negative tag, negative → positive tag.
- Know which elements the tag can contain (only an auxiliary verb + a pronoun).
- Recognise the exception 'I am … aren't I?'
- Form correct tags with be, can, do/does and have.
- Use tag questions in everyday conversation.
Lesson vocabulary
- tag question The weather today is awful, isn't it?
- auxiliary verb In the tag you may have ONLY an auxiliary verb and a pronoun.
- vice versa When the verb is positive, the tag is negative, and vice versa.
- awful The weather today is awful, isn't it?
- sunshine We don't see much sunshine these days, do we?
- indeed I don't feel very well, indeed.
- climate I prefer much warmer climate.
- the good old days You remember what summers we had in the good old days, don't you?
- enjoy themselves Young people today can't enjoy themselves, can they?
- press buttons They just stay in front of those computers and press buttons, don't they?
- earn He works on it and seems to earn quite a lot.
- single 40 next month. And still single.
- nowadays Things are so different nowadays.
- dynamic Different, difficult, but more interesting and dynamic.
- marvelous And the youngest, William, has my name. Isn't that marvelous?
In other languages: Български