Question to the subject in the future simple. Questions to the subject in English: schemes and examples for all tenses. Questions with who in English. Examples

The essence of any communication is the exchange of information. If you want to learn something specific from the interlocutor, then you need to ask an informational question. So that the interlocutor understands exactly what information you want to receive from him, important role plays the correct question word. In an informational question, the question word should come first.

All question words, with the exception of the word How, begin with the letters Wh, which is why informational questions are often called Wh-Questions. Interrogative words can be either one word, or expressed in two words, or a whole phrase. Some words (what, how) form a series of interrogative combinations, which we will also pay attention to.

It is difficult for many people to remember all the question words at once, because at first glance they seem very similar. In addition, most of the question words have nuances in use, which simply cannot be ignored.

I decided to acquaint you with interrogative words gradually, in doses, because I myself know how difficult it is to quickly perceive a large number of information. In my explanations, I will not limit myself to the translation of the question word and examples of questions with it, but will try to tell you as much as possible. Today we will look at the words who, whom and whose.

Who? - Who? (Who? Who? Who?)

This word is used only in questions about a person. When asking a question with the word who , we want to get the name of the person in response, or information about who this person is:

Who is it? - Who is this?
Who will help you? - Who will help you?
Who did you invite to the party? - Who did you invite to the party?
Who did they travel with? Who did they travel with?

Questions with who can be of two types: questions for the subject and questions for the object. Depending on what exactly we want to ask, the structure of the question will change:

Who called you? - Who called you?
(question to the subject)
Who did you call? - Who did you call?
(question to supplement)

I explained the difference between these questions in great detail in the article. If you find it difficult to catch the difference between these types of questions, then I highly recommend reading and understanding.

Whom - Whom? By whom? To whom?

The interrogative word whom is very similar to who, even translated the same way, but not used as often as who. If who can ask questions to the subject (Who?), then questions with whom suggest a question only about the addition: Whom? To whom? It is rarely seen in today's colloquial speech, this word is more typical of the formal style:

Whom did you meet yesterday? - Who did you meet yesterday?
Whom is she calling? Who is she calling?

Whom is often used in questions with verbs that require the preposition to, for, with, and others after them. For example: give , speak , talk , buy , send and many more. Therefore, questions with whom at the beginning can have a preposition at the end:

Who(m) did you talk to? - Who did you talk to?
Who(m) did he buy it for? - To whom / for whom did he buy it?
Who(m) did you send the letter to? - To whom did you send the letter?

In all of the examples above, you can replace who with whom . But if you have a very formal tone, then the preposition can go at the beginning of the sentence, before whom:

To whom did you talk to? - Who did you talk to?
With whom will you meet? - Who will you meet?

Whose? - Whose?

If you need to ask a question about who owns something, then you need the interrogative word whose (whose). Most often, whose is used with a noun. If the question is about an object (whose object?), and it is clear from the communication situation what exactly the question is about (for example, you point to an object), then the noun can be omitted:

Whose (book) is this? - Whose book is this?
Whose (pencils) are those? - Whose pencils?

If you are asking about people, then the noun after whose cannot be removed:

Whose brother is he? - Whose brother is he?
Whose children are they? - Whose children are these?

The noun about which the question is asked can also "leave" at the end of the sentence. Then auxiliary follows directly after the question word whose :

Whose is this book? - Whose book is this?
Whose are those pencils? - Whose pencils?
Whose are these children? - Whose children are these?

Since the owners of something are usually people, in response we expect to hear the name of a person in the possessive case, or possessive pronoun. How to answer questions with whose , we discussed in detail in the articles and.

Whose can also be used with prepositions. The preposition can be at the very beginning of the question (more formal) or at the end (less formal):

With whose plan do you agree? Whose plan do you agree with?
In whose house did you stay? - In whose house did you stay?

And the last moment. You can confuse the question word whose with the form who'sbecause they sound exactly the same. Who's is from who is or who has , so there is no auxiliary verb after it (it is shortened), and after whos e comes a regular, unabbreviated auxiliary verb:

Who's this? - Who is this?
Who's got a pen? - Who has a pen?
Who's done that? - Who did it?
Whose is this? - Whose is this?

In the next article on questions, I will tell you about question words. And the next article will be devoted to the question words where , when , how . If you have any questions - write to us, leave comments.

Want to relax and not think about the word order in a sentence? We have a way: who-questions, or questions to the subject in English language.

Let's say you know the basic types of questions. Are you familiar with question words such asWho, Why, When, What And how.

Suppose you are even aware of such a concept as inversion.

Just in case, remember:inversionThis is when the word order changes in a sentence. It is often used to ask a question in English. For the Russian language, this way of forming questions is uncharacteristic.

Maybe you have come across sentences that ended withisn't it? - and, thus, you got acquainted with one more type of question - disjunctive.

And you firmly learned that the auxiliary verbdoindispensable when you need to ask a question in simple tense (of course, only when it comes to action verbs).

Probably, after all that you have learned, you have the idea that it is not an easy task to ask questions in English. Indeed, why not use intonation, without any auxiliary verbs and permutations? Here's how in Russian:

You ate today.
Have you eaten today?

It is enough to put a question mark on the letter, and in oral speech raise the note on the word "ate".

Just think how monstrous compared to this is the design "Did you eat today?". Namely, this is how an ignorant person will translate the phrase “Did you eat today?”.

If you are angry at English grammarians and resent, relax. Exhale. There is a type of question that does not require turning the brain inside out. Thissubject question, Englishquestion without a hitch. Just put in a row a question word, a verb and, if any, an object:

Enjoy how easily, word by word, these phrases are translated. No need to rearrange, calculate, just translate in a row:

Who ate the cookies?

What helps you concentrate?

Who built the Berlin Wall?

It would be nice if all the questions were so simple. But this structure becomes possible only if the answer to the question is the subject.Questions to the subject in English, exampleswhich you see in the table above use question words.These could be wordswho, what, how many(who, what, how much). The main thing is that these words ask a question about the subject.

But if there are interrogative words, then these are just special questions?

Let's compare two sentences in which the question is asked usinghow many:

How many cookies are in the box? (How many cookies are in the box?)

How many cookies did you eat? (How many cookies did you eat?)

In the second sentence, much is built differently than in the first, despite the same beginning.

First, there is that same auxiliary verbdo. It is in the Past Simple form:did.

Accordingly, it looks differenteat- semantic verb. It is in the infinitive form, not the past tense, because the auxiliary has already changed insteaddo.

Word order also changesdidput in place before the subject.

In general, a lot of changes happened to the offer. Conclusion: This question is of the typespecial questions.

In the first sentence, there is no inversion, no auxiliary verbs, because the question is about the subject.

And what is subject? This, no less, is the person or thing that performs the action. That is, not the person himself, of course, but the part of speech that designates him.

Subject- This main character sentences, its protagonist.

What can a hero do? Yes, anything, for example, sing, eat, laugh:

Katja sings a song. (Katya sings a song).

Vanja eats his breakfast. (Vanya eats his breakfast).

Bobby laughs at me at school. (Bobby laughs at me at school).

And the hero can justbe, and then the verb will be usedto be:

Katja is a singer. (Kate- singer).

Vanja is a sales manager. (Vania - Sales Manager).

Bobby is a bully. (Bobby- bully).

Katya, Vanya and Bobby - This subjectin your proposals.

Let's do something exciting now: ask these subjects questions! Can you guess what question word we're going to use? Certainly,Who(Who).

Who sings a song? (Who sings the song?)

Who eat his breakfast? (Who eats their breakfast?)

Who laughs at me at school? (Who makes fun of me at school?)

And with a verb to be:

Whois a singer? (Who is the singer?)

Whois a sales manager? (Who is the sales manager?)

Whois a bully? (Who's the badass?)

What have we done? We just put the wordwhoin place of the subject. After allsubjectis the part of speech that answers the questionWho? or What?

It really is that simple.

Question to the subject in English: examples

Who eats mosquitoes?
Who eats mosquitoes?

What makes me happy?
What makes me happy?

What makes the frog happy?
What makes a frog happy?

Answers to questions in the examples will begin with the subject, but otherwise the structure of the sentences will not change:

The frog eats mosquitoes.
The frog eats mosquitoes.

Ice cream makes me happy.
Ice cream makes me happy.

Mosquitoes make the frog happy.
Mosquitoes make the frog happy.

Just do not forget that in the answer the verb must be changed in accordance with the number of the subject:

Whatmakes frog happy?- here verb makein the singular;

mosquitoesmake the frog happy- and here makealready in shape plural because there are a lot of mosquitoes, or mosquitoes.

By the way, how to understand what number to put the verb in the question, if we do not know how many characters - many or one?

The default is a single number. This is not difficult to understand, because the same thing is observed in Russian.

For example, you look in the refrigerator at work and find that the sandwiches you dreamed about all morning have disappeared (for the umpteenth time). You guess that no one will answer you, but still say with a mixture of unpleasant feelings:

Who keeps stealing my sandwiches?

Verb stealyou use in singular -steals, although it is possible that many of your employees had a hand in sandwiches.

You do not speak:

Who constantlysteal my sandwiches?

This pressing question in English will sound like this:

Who constantlysteals my sandwiches?

Likewise, the verbstealtook shape singular and third person by adding the ending -s:steals.

You can also remember this rule like this: imagine the word “somebody” in place of the subject - someone. Somebodyin English it is always in the singular, so the form of the verb will correspond to it.

Somebodyis in the house. (Someone at home).
Whois in the house? (Who is home?)

Attention, error!

Sometimes one wants to wrap up a grammatically complex phrase to show what we have been studying for so long in different educational institutions. Don't be tempted! No need to say:

Whodid steal my food?

Do you remember that the verbdonot needed in this kind of questions?

The exception is when it is used to enhance expressiveness. Approximately, as our particle "same":

- I didn't steal your sandwiches
(I didn't steal your sandwiches)

- But whodid steal them then?
(But then who stole them?)

How to ask such a question at different times?

The grammatical tense can be anything, but the rule is the same: word order remains straight.

Here is a small excerpt from the diary of a man who is kept awake by noisy neighbors. Read it, and try to ask questions to the subject at different tenses.

This diary English, subject questionscompiling also in English.

Dear diary,
It's 11 p.m. Our neighbors are drilling and hammering. Another guy next door had a party yesterday at 5 a.m. The neighbor upstairs has been drilling in the exact same spot for 3 weeks. I will call the police one day.

Dear Diary!
It's 11 p.m. now. Our neighbors are drilling and hammering. Another guy from the apartment next door had a party yesterday at five in the morning. The upstairs neighbor has been drilling at one point for three weeks now. One day I will call the police.

Here are the questions we got:

Question to the subject in Present Continuous

Who is drilling and hammering?
Who drills and knocks with a hammer?

past simple

Who had the party yesterday at 5 a.m.?
Who threw a party yesterday at five in the morning?

Present Perfect Continuous

Who has been drilling in the exact same spot for 3 weeks?
Who has been drilling at the same point for three weeks?

Future Simple

Who will call the police?
Who will call the police?

Who, whom, who and whom

When you read in English or listen to English speech, it is very important not to confuse who is the object of the action and who is the subject. Otherwise, you can draw wrong conclusions.

Subjectis the one who (what) performs the action. The part of speech is the subject.

An object- the one or that over whom (what) the action is performed. Part of speech - addition.

The word to which you can ask questionswho, what, to whom, what, about what , that is, questions to all cases, except for the nominative, and will be an addition.

The official rule is that if the question is related to the subject, you should use the wordWho.

And for the complement there is a question wordwhom(whom).

Who framed Roger rabbit?
Who framed Roger Rabbit?

But:

Whom did Roger rabbit frame?
Whom framed Roger Rabbit?

On practice whomcan be found more often in written speech, and in oral speech it is quite acceptable to useWhofor supplementary questions: Who do you love? (Who do you love?)

How to answer questions to the subject?

On a direct (with direct word order) the question must be answered directly. That is, first the subject, then the verb, then the object.

- Who killed Sam? (Who killed Sam?)
- Mike killed Sam. (Mike killed Sam).

You can replace the semantic verb withdid, to be short.

- Mike did. (Mike).

In sentences containing a verbto be, the answer will also beto bein the appropriate form:

- Who is fixing the computer? (Who fixes the computer?)
- My husband's friend is doing it. (My husband's friend does this).

Or:

- My husband's friend is. (Friend of my husband).

Often there is a very simple option when, in response to a question to the subject, the speaker simply calls the subject without a verb:

- Who is on the team?
- (Who's on the team?)

- Guys from all over the world. (Guys from all over the world).

To better feelsubject questions, you can include in your everyday life the following expressions, which can often be heard from English-speaking people:

1) Who cares?

A rhetorical question. Literally -who cares(about this), the semantic translation is “who cares”, “so what”. With a slight hint of hopelessness and / or indifference, because the answer is usually “nobody” (no one cares).

- If you don't practice, you will fail your test.

- Who cares? ( - If you don't study, you will fail the test.
- So what?)

2) Who told you (that)?

"Who (this) told you?"

Another useful phrase, it is useful for expressing disagreement with what has been said.

Who told you I didn't love you?
(Who told you that I don't love you?)

3) Who's there?

Such question to the subject in Present Simpleasked to ask "who's there?"

- Knock-knock! (Knock Knock!)
- Who's there? (Who's there?).

4) What happened?

An indispensable phrase, translated without difficulty and means "what happened?".

- What happened?
- Nothing, it's just a scratch.

( - What's happened?
- Nothing, just a scratch).

To make it easy for you to askquestion to the subject in English, exercisesnecessary, despite the simplicity of the topic. We invite you to do a little fun exercise right now!

Mafia leader translator

thirties, USA. There is a crime scene going on. The reason for the meeting was a series of brutal murders in the mafia environment:

Mike killed Sam
Mike killed Henry
Lucky killed Mike
Frank killed Lucky

The mafia boss came from Italy and still doesn't speak English very well. Besides, he is already old and forgot who killed whom. Help him learn the following things:

Who killed Sam?
Who killed Henry?
Who killed Mike?
Who killed Lucky?

And generally speaking,

Who is left alive?

And here are the questions. Did you do the same?

Who killed Sam?
Who killed Henry?
Who killed Mike?
Who killed Lucky?

Who is still alive?

*No mafiosi were harmed in the making of this exercise.

Thanks to lessons 8 and 20, you are already familiar with question words and can ask questions in different tenses. Today's lesson is about how to ask questions about the subject.

Question words who and what

Subject - the main member of the sentence, indicating the person or thing that performs the action. When you ask a subject question, the question words Who and What are used. The word order with them remains exactly the same as in positive offer. And most importantly, no auxiliary verbs are used. For example:

Sam is talking to Katy. — Who is talking to Katy?

The accident happened yesterday. — What happened yesterday?

He can do it. — Who can do it?

The interrogative words Who and What are used when we ask a question for an object (answers questions of indirect cases). In this case, you will need auxiliary verbs:

Sam is talking to Katy. — Who is Sam talking to?

They bought a new car yesterday. — What did they buy?

He can do it. — What can he do?

Important! Pay attention to the use of prepositions in questions!

The words what and who agree with the singular verb, so don't forget to add the ending "s" to the predicate in the question to the subject, for example:

They speak Spanish. — Who speak s Spanish?

The question words which, whose, how many and how much

The interrogative words which, whose, how many and how much can also form a subject question. In this case, they must be used together with a noun:

The bedroom has two windows. — Which room has two windows?

Tom's dog is playing in the garden. — Whose dog is playing in the garden?

A lot of people live here. — How many people live here?

some money has been paid. — how much money has been paid?

If you use these interrogative words to ask a question for an object, you will need auxiliary verbs:

I will choose Room 7. — Which room will you choose?

Ruth is walking Tom's dog. — Whose dog is Ruth walking?

I asked a few people. — How many people did you ask?

I paid some money. — how much money did you pay?

Tasks for the lesson

Task 1. Ask a subject question using who, what, which, whose, how many, or how much.

1. These flowers look wonderful.
2. So many people call here every day.
3. My brother works in the Zoo.
4. Rachel is coming to see us.
5. Mum's bag is in the car.
6. Red house is the biggest.
7. Miss Morstan will go to Paris.
8. The flight has been delayed.

Task 2. Ask a question to the highlighted word.

One of the most difficult topics in the classroom arequestions with who in English. But in fact, everything is quite simple, since in these questions you don’t even need to use auxiliary verbs. And the word order remains exactly the same as in a regular declarative sentence. Questions fromwhoare quite common in English, so it is important to learn how to formulate them correctly.

Questions with who in English. Construction scheme

As for word order in questions with who in English, then it is universal. Pay attention to the following diagram:

Who + main verb (often in the 3rd person singular) + other members of the sentence

Why is the auxiliary verb not used in these questions? For the reason that the question is addressed to a person or object, instead of which, in our question, who. Consider examples:

1. A: Who wrote that novel? Who wrote that novel?

B: Anna did. - Anna.

2. A: Who is speaking? – Who is speaking?

B: Tom is. - Volume.

It should be noted that such questions are encountered not only with the word who. May apply which, what, whose and even how many. How then to figure it out? You can simply try to replace the question word or phrase with who. If this does not change the meaning of the sentence, you need to use the rules for questions with who in English.

For example:

A: How many people came to the meeting? How many people came to the meeting?

Q: Six people came to the meeting. Six people came to the meeting.

Questions with who in English. Examples

Below are other examples questions with who(which, what, whose…) in English.

There is one more interest Ask, which always sounds without an auxiliary verb. This What happened? (What's happened?)

Why are questions starting with who so important?

Is it worth focusing on this topic? Why are so important questions starting with who? Let's try to figure it out with the help of the following suggestions.

Question to the Subject, or Subject Questions, is one of the five types of questions in English grammar. Undoubtedly, its design is the most simple and understandable. To master it, you will have to spend quite a bit of time. Many publications on English grammar do not classify it as a separate type, but attach it to special questions. Despite the fact that the Question to the Subject begins with a special word, its structure differs sharply from the Special Question. Therefore, I still believe that it should be studied as a separate type so that there is no confusion.

What is a Question to the Subject and why is it needed?

Questions to the subject (Subject Questions) in English are questions that are asked in order to obtain additional information. From the name it is clear that the information relates directly to the main member of the sentence - the subject.

Subject Questions in English always begin with the question words "who?" and "what?", which are respectively translated as "who?" So what?". These interrogative pronouns are full members of the sentence. Since the interrogative pronoun replaces the member of the sentence to which the question is asked, in this case it performs the function of the subject.

Subject Questions are the only type of questions in English that do not have inversion. The word order in the question to the subject remains the same as in the declarative sentence. Therefore, the compilation of Subject Questions is not difficult.

It should be emphasized that the question for the definition of the subject is built on the same principle, without changing the order of words in the sentence. The question for determining the subject begins with one of the following interrogative words: "what" - "which", "which" - "which", "whose" - "whose", "how much" / "how many" - "how much", for followed by a noun. An interrogative pronoun followed by a noun also functions as a subject.

Drawing up a Question to the Subject and its Definition is a momentary matter that absolutely everyone can handle. The subject question begins with who for animate nouns and what for inanimate nouns. The question for the definition of the subject is from the words what, which, whose, how much / how many. The question word is followed by a verb. Thus, in questions to the subject and its definition, the direct word order is preserved, as in a declarative sentence.

The principle of compiling Subject Questions is as follows:

We take a declarative sentence, find the subject, and replace it with the appropriate interrogative pronoun. That's all!

But still there is one little nuance which should not be forgotten. In the present tense, the verb in the question to the subject must be in the form of the 3rd person, singular (i.e., you need to add the ending "-s"). Since we don't know what answer might follow, it is customary to use the 3rd person. In Russian, the situation is similar.

Let's move on to the questions themselves in English, or rather to examples, and you will immediately understand everything.

• She can speak Spanish very well - She can speak Spanish very well
• Instead of the subject "she" we put the pronoun "who". The rest of the sentence is rewritten without changes.
• Who can speak Spanish very well? Who can speak Spanish very well?

• She speaks Spanish very well - She speaks Spanish very well
• Who speaks Spanish very well? Who speaks Spanish very well?

• I am a teacher - I am a teacher
• In order to ask the question "who is the teacher?" we must put the verb "am" in the 3rd person singular (according to the rule) → i.e. we will use the verb "is" in the question.
• Who is a teacher? - Who is the teacher?

• Surely you now remembered the phrase "Who is who?" − Who is who?

• The books are in the classroom — Textbooks in the classroom
• What is in the classroom? - What is in the classroom?

• They speak to her - They speak to her
• In this sentence, to ask a question, you need to add an ending to the verb.
• Who speaks to her? Who is talking to her?

If the verb in the sentence is in the past or future tense, then it does not change. For example:

• They worked hard yesterday - They worked hard yesterday
• Who worked hard yesterday? Who worked hard yesterday?

• We will do it tomorrow - We will do it tomorrow
• Who will do it tomorrow? Who will do it tomorrow?

Now we will give some examples of Questions to the Definition of the Subject. We take a narrative sentence. We find the definition for the subject, and instead use the corresponding word (what, which, whose, how much / how many). The rest of the proposal is left unchanged. Note that the subject is preserved, but the verb is not placed before it.

• My sister is a teacher - My sister is a teacher
• Whose sister is a teacher? Whose sister is the teacher?

• Green pencils are on the table - Green pencils on the table
• What pencils are on the table? − What pencils are on the table?

Answers to Subject Questions

Subject Questions usually require a short answer that consists of a subject and an auxiliary or modal verb.

• Who has eaten all the apples? - Jim has (Who ate all the apples? - Jim)
• What can be done here? - Nothing can (What can be done in this case? - Nothing)
• Who must clean up the office? - Olga must (Who should clean the office? - Olga)
• Who plays the tennis there? - Helen does (Who plays tennis? - Lena)

If the verbs to be and to have are used in their semantic meaning, then the auxiliary verb is not needed.

• What is that? - That is a car (What is it? - This is a car)
• Who has the power? — The Parliament has. (Who has power? - Parliament)

In colloquial speech, in response to a question to the subject, an auxiliary or modal verb may go down.

• Who has sang it? - Peter (Who sang this? - Petya)
• What is that? - A car (What is it? - Machine)

Watch video lessons on the topic: “Question to the subject in English”