Tip 2
Helping Verbs: “the missing link”
Imagine yourself having a conversation with an Native English speaker for a moment, what are the 2 things that the conversation consists of?
Any conversation naturally consists of a question and answer interaction. Hence, learning how to ask a question in English is one of the most basic and important skills you can acquire.
The point is, there is a fundamental difference between certain languages and English in this area. In English, unlike in some languages, there is something called auxiliary verbs with which we construct questions.
What does it mean? Below this paragraph I have listed 3 questions in X language and I want you to try to translate them before you scroll down to find out the answers.
1) When does he start work every day?
2) How many years has he been working for the company?
3) When did he join the company?
Correct Form:
1) When does he start work every day?
2) How many years has he been working for the company?
3) When did he join the company?
The words in red are helping verbs. I’m sure at least some of you built the question in the following way:
1) When he start work every day?
2) How many years he working for the company?
3) When he joined the company?
In many languages such as language X and Y there is not such thing as helping verbs. In English, however, we almost always use a helping verb when we build a question as seen in the aboove examples.
- there is an exception to this – mostly for subject question. This will be examined in the next tips.
In summary: remember, after a question word in English there will almost always come a helping verb.
How do we use them? Decide which one to use? Understand their meaning? More about this on the next tips 🙂
