Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

ClarissaMach · Last edited by ClarissaMach on Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:18 am; edited 1 time in total

Dear teachers, would you please tell me which sentences below are correct, (1) or (2)?:

1) Why do boys like appearance and girls like character?

2) Why boys like appearance and girls like character?

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1) Why do things go wrong?

2) Why things go wrong?

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1) Have you never suspected?

2) You have never suspected?
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Stormy Weather.

Anuradha Chepur · Joined: 20 May 2006 Posts: 933

#1 is correct in each pair.

'suspect' is a transitive verb, so you need to put an object:
Have you never suspected him/her etc?

ClarissaMach · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 3:47 am Post subject:

Thanks, Mrs Chepur.

The "suspect" sentence was taken from a book. In the context, it made sense -- it had an object.

But I still have a question: when can we "drop" the auxiliary verb "do" in questions? Is there a rule for that?

The first thing we, Portuguese speakers, are taught in English courses is that we must use "do" to form questions. In Portuguese, all you need is intonation.

Ela sabe de tudo.

Ela sabe de tudo?

She knows it all.

Does she knows it all?

One of the most common mistakes we commit at the start is forming questions like this: "She knows it all?"; "She went there?"

So, can you help me?
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Stormy Weather.

ESL-ish · Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 44 Location: Arizona

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

Allow me to stick in a plug about my website, Clarissa. I have three explanations I use with my students to show the regular English question order. (Not the special surprise one that ESL-ish explained.)

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/grammar/yesnoquestions1A.html

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/grammar/yesnoquestions2A.html

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/grammar/questionwordquestion1.html

In addition, here's a link to a question I answered about embedded questions (The difference between "Where did he go?" and "Where do you think he went?")

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/student/viewtopic.php?t=20963

ClarissaMach · Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 8:44 am Post subject:

Thanks a lot, teachers!

Lorikeet, it's not the first time your website helps me out! By the way, I wish it would offer more of those exercises to test if we notice the diference between words like "pen" and "pan", "wine" and "vine", etc.
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Stormy Weather.

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco