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Question words (1) - English lesson
Question words
Questions about the subject
When we ask questions about the subject of a sentence, the word order in the question and the answer is the same:
Ben designed this house.
Who designed this house?
X Who did build this house?
/ Who built this house?
• We use what, who, which, whose and how many in-questions about the subject.
Questions about the object
Questions about the object need an auxiliary verb (do, have, is, etc.) before the subject:
Wren designed this cathedral.
What did Wren design?
• We use what, which, who, whose, when, where, how often, etc. in questions about the object.
X Which cathedral Wren built?
/ Which cathedral did Wren build?
Here is a summary of question words with examples:
Question word | Example: subject question | Example: object question |
Who | Who is teaching you? | Who do you know here? (Whom is very formal.) |
What |
What caused the problem?
| What film did you see? |
What kind of | What kind of people live here? | What kind of TV programmes do you watch? |
Which |
Which book sold most?
| Which picture do you like? |
Whose |
Whose book won the prize?
| Whose book did you borrow? |
How many |
How many pupils came to the lesson? | How many people did you see? |
Why | Why did you get up so late? | |
When | When did you go to | |
How | How do I get to your house? | |
How far | How far is the college from here? | |
How long
How often
| How long does it take to get there? How often do you go swimming? |
Position of prepositions
• Note the change in the position of a preposition in questions about the object:
I gave the book to John, becomes: Who did you give the book to? or To whom did you give the book? (= formal)
She sent the letter from
What or which?
We use what when the choice is open. We use which when there is a limited choice:
What colour do you like? (= open choice)
Which colour do you prefer, red or blue? (= limited choice)
What countries have you visited? (= open choice)
Which countries in
Ask a question about the information brackets in each of the following sentences using who, what, how, which or another question word.
Example: There 's (a litre) of milk left.
==> How much milk is left?