Question tags
Adding short tags like isn't it? and do you? to the end of a sentence.
A question tag is a short question added to the end of a statement to check information or to ask the listener to agree, such as 'You are a student, aren't you?'. The basic rule of polarity is that a positive statement takes a negative tag, and a negative statement takes a positive tag. The tag repeats the auxiliary (helping) verb from the main sentence — be, have, will, can, etc. — followed by a pronoun that matches the subject (Tom is here, isn't he?). If the statement has no auxiliary, we use a form of 'do' that matches the tense: present simple uses do/does and past simple uses did (You like tea, don't you?; She came early, didn't she?). Negative tags are almost always written as contractions (isn't, don't, won't). A few special cases are worth remembering: 'I am' takes the tag 'aren't I?', and the sentence 'Let's go' takes 'shall we?'. For example: 'They didn't finish the homework, did they?' — a negative statement, so the tag is the positive 'did they?'.
Rules
- 1A positive statement takes a negative tag; a negative statement takes a positive tag (It is cold, isn't it? / It isn't cold, is it?).
- 2The tag repeats the auxiliary verb (be, have, will, can) plus a matching subject pronoun (She can swim, can't she?).
- 3If there is no auxiliary, use do/does for the present simple and did for the past simple (You work here, don't you?; He left, didn't he?).
- 4Negative tags use contractions (isn't, aren't, don't, won't, can't).
- 5Remember the special tags: 'I am …, aren't I?' and 'Let's …, shall we?'.
Practice
15 easy · 15 medium · 15 hard