[Beginner] Questions and negatives

Learn about questions and negative verb forms and do the exercises to practise using them.

Yes/No questions

Yes/No questions are questions which we answer with Yes or No.

Examples:

They are studying hard
They will be study hard
They had studied hard
They have been studying hard
They might have been studying hard

We make Yes/No questions by putting the first part of the verb in front of the subject:

Are they studying hard
Will they be study hard
Had they studied hard
Have they been studying hard
Might they have been studying hard

Negatives

We make negatives by putting not after the first part of the verb:

They are studying hard
They will not be study hard
They had not studied hard
They have not been studying hard
They might not have been studying hard

In spoken English, we often reduce not to n’t:

They aren’t studying hard
They won’t be study hard
They hadn’t studied hard
They haven’t been studying hard
They mightn’t have been studying hard

Present simple and past simple questions and negatives

For all verbs except be and have, we use do/does or did to make Yes/No questions in the present simple and past simple:

They work hard. > Do they work hard?
He works hard. > Does he work hard?
They worked hard. > Did they work hard?

For all verbs except be and have, we use do/does + not or did + not to make negatives in the present simple and past simple:

They work hard. > They do not (don’t) work hard
.
He works hard. > He does not (doesn’t) work hard.
They worked hard. > They did not (didn’t) work hard.

Here are the question forms and negative forms for be in the present simple and past simple:

We make questions and negatives with have in two ways. Usually we use do/does or did:

Does she have enough money?
Did they have any useful advice?

She doesn’t have any money.
They didn’t have any advice to offer.

but we can also make questions by putting have/has or had in front of the subject:

Has she enough money?
Had they any useful advice?

and make negatives by putting not or n’t after have/has or had:

She hasn’t any money.
He hadn’t any advice to offer.

Source: British Council