100 Mistakes #24 - The order of questions

Let's look at a question:

What eats chickens?

This is a perfectly good question but is the answer foxes or corn?

The position of the words "eat" and "chickens" is important here.

If part of a sentence says:
"... chickens eat...", I know that chickens eat something. These chickens are doing something. So the chickens are the subject of the verb.

If part of a sentence says:
"...eat chickens...", I know that something eats chickens. So these chickens are the object of the verb. The chickens are now a type of food.

You can't put the subject after the main verb because I will think it's the object!

So... what eats chickens?

Foxes.
Foxes eat chickens.
(Subjects eat objects.)

This question was a "tell-me-the-subject" question.

- - - - -

But what question should I ask to get the answer corn?
What if I want you to tell me the object?

Well, we know that the order has to be "... chickens eat..." because chickens eat corn.

So we could try... What chickens eat?

But... English is a language of auxiliaries.

We need the auxiliary verb, do:

What do chickens eat?

Corn.
Chickens eat corn.
(Subjects eat objects.)

This question was a "tell-me-the-object" question.

- - - - -

Fantastic. So how do I know when I need to use an auxiliary?

As a general rule, in most tenses, you need an auxiliary.
But in the present simple and simple past, we can sometimes drop (delete) the auxiliary.

Let's break it down into positive and negative statements, and a series of questions:

(+) Chickens eat corn.
(-) Chickens don't eat corn.
(?) Yes or No: Do chickens eat corn?
(?) tell-me-the-object: What do chickens eat?
(?) tell-me-the-subject: What eats corn?

So, in the PRESENT SIMPLE:

• you don't need the auxiliary 'do' in the positive statement and "tell-me-the-subject" questions.
• for the other forms (negative, yes/no questions, "tell-me-the-object" questions and other questions: why, how, where...), you need the auxiliary 'do'.

The SIMPLE PAST is very similar:

• you don't need the auxiliary 'did' in the positive statement and "tell-me-the-subject" questions.
• for all other forms (negative, yes/no questions, "tell-me-the-object" questions, and other questions: why, how, where...), you need the auxiliary 'did'.

(+) The chickens ate the corn.
(-) The chickens didn't eat the corn.
(?) Yes or No: Did the chickens eat the corn?
(?) tell-me-the-object: What did the chickens eat?
(?) tell-me-the-subject: What ate the corn?


But the present simple and simple past are special.
Other tenses need auxiliaries in every form.

Here's the PRESENT CONTINUOUS:

• you need the auxiliary 'be' in every form.

(+) The chickens are eating the corn.
(-) The chickens aren't eating the corn.
(?) Yes or No: Are the chickens eating the corn?
(?) tell-me-the-object: What are the chickens eating?
(?) tell-me-the-subject: What is eating the corn?

- - - - -

So here are a few questions that I've heard from my students. They are not English sentences because there are mistakes in the structure. But where did my students go wrong?


1. What means "overwhelming"?

2. Where the concert takes place?

3. You like Barça?

4. When started the lesson?

5. What we do today?

6. When you came to Spain?

7. You go to England in August? 

100 Mistakes #6 - 'say' or 'tell'?

You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me
You gotta tell me you're coming back to me

You gotta say me you´re coming back to me


When you want to show that speaker A is giving some information to listener B, we use 'tell'.
We don't quote directly with 'tell'.

[Speaker A] tells [listener B] [something]

Dorothy told me [something]
Dorothy told me that she was coming back to me.

Dorothy told me "I'm coming back to you!"  (direct quote - use ´say`)
Dorothy told that she was coming back to me. (add listener B or use ´say`)

When you think that the words are important, or that it´s obvious who the listener is, you need to use "say".

[Speaker A] says [something]

Dorothy said [something]
Dorothy said "I'm coming back to you!"
Dorothy said that she was coming back to me.

Dorothy said me "I'm coming back to you!" (remove listener B)
Dorothy said me that she was coming back to me.  (remove listener B or use ´tell`)

- - - - -

We also 'tell a story' and 'tell a lie', with or without mentioning listener B. In the same way that you 'sing a song' or 'make a promise', here we are not saying the actual words that they used, we`re just saying what they did.

He told me a story about his trip to Afghanistan.
He told a story about his trip to Afghanistan.
He said a story about his trip to Afghanistan.

He's been telling lies again.
He's been telling me lies again.
He's been saying lies again.

100 Mistakes #1 - What's the subject?

I teach English in Barcelona, so I hear sentences like this every day:

This year have increased sales of ice cream by 10%.
Arrives my train at 6am.
Is very difficult the English.

These sentences don't work because in English you need to put the subject before the verb. (The subject is the person or thing that is 'doing' the verb.)

Here they are again with the subject in the right place:

This year, sales of ice cream have increased by 10%.
My train arrives at 6am.
English is very difficult.
(And no, it isn't difficult. You just have to put your sentences in the right order!)

The Queen and Prince Philip want to know
where their subjects are!

The Golden rule: The subject must go before the verb (...unless it's a question or an imperative, or you get so good at English that you know when you can play around.)





So why do Spanish people get this wrong so much?

In Spanish, you can leave out the subject and put it in later. This is probably because Spanish verbs contain more information than English verbs.

Just look at the verbs 'to scream' and 'gritar':

I scream, you scream, he/she/it screams, we scream, you scream, they scream, (we all scream for ice cream!)

Yo grito, tú gritas, él/élla grita, nosotros gritamos, vosotros gritáis, ellos/ellas gritan, (todos pedimos helado a gritos!)

If we take the subjects away from the English examples, we don't have very much information. If we take them away from the Spanish examples, we have nearly all of the information.

In Spanish you can say "Yo vivo en londres", or "Vivo en londres".

You can 'drop' the pronoun if you want, and we still know who you are talking about. 

In English, you have to say "I live in London" not "Live in London"

You cannot 'drop' the pronoun. If you do, we get very confused.

       

Notice that in Spanish, the verb 'vivo' shows that I live in London, but in English, the verb 'live' doesn't tell us anything about who lives there.

So when someone keeps asking "who?", or "what are you talking about?", it's not because they've forgotten that the conversation is about your new boyfriend, it's just that you forgot to say "he"!

We don't have to say precisely what the subject is every time but we need to use a subject pronoun:

           I, you, he, she, it, we, they, this, that

Also, beware of sentences that start with a preposition such as "In 1989..." or "At the swimming pool..."
Just because there's something before the verb, doesn't make it a subject.

At the swimming pool, have started selling ice-creams. 

"Who? Who?"

At the swimming pool, the staff have started selling ice-creams. 

"You don't need to say precisely who. You just need a pronoun!"

At the swimming pool, they've started selling ice-creams!

"Hooray!"

Oh, is interesting!

Oh, that's interesting!       [that = the thing I just said.]

In Spanish, you can do the same, if you want to: "Esto es interesante!"
In English you have no choice.