Question Tags Part 1

Speaker 1
So, I have to admit, when I first started learning about question tags, I totally glossed over auxiliary verbs. But they’re actually the backbone, right?
Speaker 2
You’re not alone—auxiliary verbs are easy to overlook, but they’re absolutely vital for forming question tags. Think of them like the engine that powers the whole thing. Without the right auxiliary, your tag just falls apart.
Speaker 1
That engine analogy is spot on. I guess the first step is just spotting that auxiliary verb in a sentence. For example, if I say, ‘She is studying hard,’ the ‘is’ becomes the core of my tag, doesn’t it?
Speaker 2
Exactly! In that sentence, you’d create the tag ‘isn’t she?’ What’s interesting is about 85% of standard English sentences have an auxiliary that decides the tag structure. Once you spot it, the rest is pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1
That actually reminds me—there are different kinds of auxiliary verbs, right? Like the ‘be’ family and the ‘have’ family. How do those work with tags?
00:57
From ‘Be’ and ‘Have’ to Modals: Building Better Tags
Speaker 2
Great question. The ‘be’ verbs—am, is, are, was, were—are some of the easiest to spot. When they show up, they go straight into the tag. Like, ‘They are leaving soon, aren’t they?’ Or that weird exception: ‘I am ready, aren’t I?’
Speaker 1
Oh, that ‘aren’t I’ thing always threw me. But what about the ‘have’ family? I see ‘have’ and ‘has’ all the time, especially in perfect tenses.
Speaker 2
You’re totally right. When ‘have,’ ‘has,’ or ‘had’ help another verb, they’re the foundation of your tag. So, in ‘She has seen that movie before,’ the tag is ‘hasn’t she?’ It’s all about matching that auxiliary form.
Speaker 1
And then there are modals—like ‘can,’ ‘will,’ or ‘must.’ I get the sense those make things simpler. You just use the modal in the tag, right?
Speaker 2
Exactly. If you see a modal, just use it: ‘You can swim, can’t you?’ or ‘He must be tired, mustn’t he?’ The trick is always grabbing the right verb and flipping the polarity.
Speaker 1
Speaking of flipping, I sometimes mix up when to use ‘do,’ ‘does,’ or ‘did.’ That can get messy—how do we sort that out?
02:05
Mastering ‘Do’, ‘Does’, and ‘Did’—And the Polarity Rule
Speaker 2
Honestly, this is where most people get tripped up. If you don’t have an auxiliary in the main sentence, you need to use ‘do,’ ‘does,’ or ‘did’ in the tag. It’s all about tense and subject: for ‘she sings beautifully,’ you’d use ‘doesn’t she?’.
Speaker 1
So for present simple, I use ‘do’ with I, you, we, they—like, ‘They like pizza, don’t they?’—and ‘does’ for he, she, it. And if it’s past tense, always ‘did,’ right? ‘They watched the movie, didn’t they?’
Speaker 2
Exactly. And here’s where polarity kicks in—positive statements get negative tags, and negative statements flip to positive tags. That’s the linguistic seesaw at work.
Speaker 1
Funny you put it that way—I’ve always pictured it like a tug-of-war. So, if I say, ‘You don’t like coffee,’ the tag is ‘do you?’ Not ‘don’t you,’ even though that feels tempting!
Speaker 2
Totally, it’s a classic error! The polarity rule is what gives question tags their unique back-and-forth rhythm in conversation. Nail that, and your English sounds much more natural.