A yes/no question is a question you can answer "yes" or "no" to. That's pretty simple, right? So "Do you have a Shmoopscription?" is a yes/no question, but "When did you get a Shmoopscription?" is something called a Wh-Question (which is covered in the next section).
As an ELL, you might find yourself forming yes/no questions like this:
- You have a sister?
- She has seen that movie?
- They went to In-N-Out?
Instead of...
- Do you have a sister?
- Has she seen that movie?
- Did they go to In-N-Out?
That's because this is how these questions are formed in Spanish. The first three questions aren't incorrect, but they're echo questions, not yes/no questions.
In case you need review, here's how you form yes/no questions in English:
Step 1: Find a declarative sentence. Here are some fresh, new ones for you:
- Monica has gone to the carnival.
- He can come inside.
- Jim is being nice.
- They like ham sandwiches.
- You don't know how to dance.
Step 2: Find the highest verb. The highest verb is the one that's closest to the beginning of the sentence. It will either be have, be, or a modal verb (can, may, would, will, etc). A lot of sentences will only have one verb. For those, insert do before the main verb. Here they are in bold:
- Monica has gone to the carnival.
- He can come inside.
- Jim is being nice.
- They (do) like ham sandwiches.
- You don't know how to dance.
Step 3: Move the highest verb to the front of the sentence. Also, don't forget the question mark. If don't is spelled out as do not, then not needs to stay where it is. It can't come along for the ride if it's not buckled in.
- Has Monica _ gone to the carnival?
- Can he _ come inside?
- Is Jim _ being nice?
- Do they like ham sandwiches?
- Don't you _ know how to dance? / Do you _ not know how to dance?
We included a gap (_) to make it easier to see where stuff is getting moved from.
For more info on echo questions and yes/no questions that have do, check out the do-insertion section of our Verbs module.