QUESTIONS

  • Usually, a ‘question’ is a sentence that is used to get information.
  • Often, the verb is before the subject.

Would you mind?

Here are the most common examples with explanations of ‘would you mind‘: Would you mind if I took your picture? *notice the past form ‘took’ to be polite. Listen to the pronunciation   In the English Grammar Profile, point 83 at B1 in the category of MODALITY is defined as: ‘would’ to make polite requests, often in the fixed expression ‘would you …

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ANY + comparative

‘Any’ can be used as an adverb to mean ‘at all’ or ‘in some degree’. Here are expert examples: We‘re not gonna discuss it here any further. Keep The Change You‘re not at university any longer. listen How would that end any differently than last time? Captain America In the English Vocabulary Profile, ‘any’ is listed as ADVERB B1 used in questions and negatives to emphasize a comparative adjective or adverb Do you feel any better? …

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WHAT IS IT YOU WANT? (relative clause question)

Let’s analyse questions that have relative clauses to give emphasis.  So usually, we would say something like: What do we want to ask?  What are we trying to find out here? You can see the normal auxiliary verbs ‘be’ and ‘do’ get removed and relative clauses are added in the EXPERT EXAMPLES: What is it that we want …

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Can you believe it?

In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 74 in MODALITY is defined: ‘can you believe’ to express surprise PELIC STUDENT EXAMPLE: Can you believe that my poor mother still did not know that she was dying? Mongol female level 4 grammar class. TLC SPEAKING TEST EXAMPLE: Can you believe that only in Niger there are one point three million people  who are in critical need of food and assistance due to corruption? female Sri Lanka B1 An iWeb search: 1 Can you believe it? 2387 listen 2 …

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Could I?

Point 56 in the category of MODALITY: ‘could I’ to seek permission. An iWeb search for: . Could I * * *We have removed anything that is obviously not asking permission but still many entries contain questions related to possibility. 2 . COULD I GET A 93    MMA Conor McGregor asks for Jorge Masvidal …

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am|is|are + going + to-INFINITVE (future)

Here are examples of ‘BE going to’ with A1 infinitives: It is going to take time. Listen Are you going to do anything about it? Listen This is a group of people who want to tell you your work is going to live. listen I need a video clip, and you‘re gonna give it to me. listen   ‘Snow’ is A2 in the English Vocabulary Profile: The weather forecast said it‘s going to snow tonight. listen In the English Grammar Profile, in the category of FUTURE: B1 Point 31 is defined: ‘be going …

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Could you possibly?

In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 101 in MODALITY/adverbs is defined: ‘could’ + subject + ‘possibly’ to make requests more polite *This is a very rare structure across corpora for a B1 structure.  This point overlaps the more common and general: B1 questions with adverbs: Could you possibly tell me how to fix this? An iWeb search for: . Could I|you possibly * 1 . …

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negative question

Negative questions usually show the speaker’s expectation that the response should be positive. In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 12 in the category of NEGATION is defined as: negative question forms in main clauses and question tags. This is such a general point that overlaps and clashes against so many other points in the …

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