Grammar / A1 Grammar lessons and exercises /Questions: Word order and question words
Questions: Word Order and Question Words
Word Order: QWASI
In present simple questions, we use the order: QWASI:
- Question Word (what, where, when, why, how, etc.)
- Auxiliary Verb (do/does or am/is/are)
- Subject (I, you, he, she, it, we, they)
- Infinitive (base verb, without -s or -es)
What do you do?
Where do they live?
Yes/No Questions
In yes/no questions, there is no question word. The order is: Auxiliary + Subject + Infinitive.
Do you speak English?
Does she live here?
Questions with 'be' (am/is/are)
When the main verb is be, we use am/is/are as the auxiliary verb before the subject.
Structure: Question Word + Auxiliary (am/is/are) + Subject
Where is your brother?
How old is she?
Is he from Canada? (Yes/No)
Questions with 'do/does'
For verbs that are not 'be', we use do (I/you/we/they) or does (he/she/it).
The main verb stays in the infinitive form (no -s or -es).
What does she do? ✅
What does she does? ❌Where does he work? ✅Where does he works? ❌
What + Noun
We often use what + noun as a question phrase:
- What time is it?
- What colour is your jacket?
- What size do you want?
- What car does he have?
How + Adjective/Adverb
We can also use how + adjective/adverb to ask about qualities or frequency:
- How fast is your car?
- How big is her house?
- How often do you play sports?
- How old is he?