Yes-no questions with the BE verb. Remember the BE verb. In this lesson, you are going to learn how to form yes-no questions with these forms of BE. What is a yes-no question? Here are some yes-no questions. Are you a student? Is he your teacher? Are they your classmates? The answers to these questions are yes or no. Are you a student? Yes, I am. Is he your teacher? Yes, he is. Are they your classmates? No, they aren't. Form a question with BE. You already know how to make a statement with BE. He is a musician. We start with the subject. Here, it's he. Then we have a form of the BE verb. Here, we use is because is goes with he, third-person singular. We have, he is a musician. To form a question, we just switch or reverse the order of the subject and verb. He is changes to is he. Is he a musician? Yes, he is. Let's do it again. Form a question with BE. The statement here is, the trees are tall. The subject is trees and the verb is are. When we want to make a question, we flip or reverse the order of the subject and the verb. The trees are tall changes to are the trees tall. Are the trees tall? Yes, they are. Let's practice. Look at the answer. Jessica is at the airport. Jessica is the subject and is is the verb. We reverse the order and we get, is Jessica at home? No, she isn't. Jessica is at the airport. Here's another. What is the question? The answer is, the water is cold. We want to reverse the order. Is the water warm? No, it isn't. The water is cold. What's the question here? The answer is, Andrew is confused. The question is, is Andrew confused? Yes, he is. Andrew is confused. Last one. Look at the answer. I am a teacher. What's the question? Are you a teacher? Yes, I am. If you wrote the question, am I a teacher, that can also be correct, it's possible, but usually, we don't ask a question about ourselves. Like, am I a teacher? Usually, it's are you a teacher? Yes, I am. We use short answers for yes-no questions. These answers usually have three words. Yes, I am. Yes, he is. Some of these answers use contractions. No, they aren't. You can say, no, they are not, of course, but we often use contractions when we speak. We use short answers for yes-no questions, but of course, you can just answer yes or no. Sometimes, this is fine, and sometimes, it sounds too short. Let's look. Is your name Rebecca? No. How about this? Is your name Rebecca? No, it isn't. My name is Rachel. To answer yes, use the subject and BE. Here's our be chart again. To form the short answer, just put yes and a comma in front of the subject and the BE verb. Yes, I am. Yes, you are. Yes, he is. Yes, she is. Yes, it is. Yes, we are. Yes, you are. Yes, they are. These are the short answers when you want to answer yes. For no, use the subject plus BE and then add not. Here's the chart again. We add no to the front, a comma, and then not at the end. No, I am not. No, you are not. No, he is not. No, she is not. No, it is not. No, we are not. No, you're not. No, they are not. These are the short answers for the no answer. But remember, we can also use contractions. We use contractions in the negative form. We use the same contractions you know from the lesson about the BE verb in the negative. Remember, there are three ways. The long way with the full verb and the word not. The second way, make a contraction with the pronoun and the BE verb. The third way, make a contraction with the BE verb and not. Let's practice with some short answers. Is the rose yellow? No. No, it is not. No, it's not. No, it isn't. It is red. All three of these negative answers mean the exact same thing. It's just your choice which one do you want to use. Is an alligator dangerous? Yes, it is. There's only one answer here because it is a yes answer. We can't do all of those contractions with a yes answer. Are they in class? No. No, they are not. No, they're not. No, they aren't. They're in a coffee shop. Are puppies cute? Yes, they are. Maybe you want to write yes, they're, but this is incorrect because we don't make a contraction with those yes answers. It doesn't work. Are apples healthy? Yes, they are. Let's check to see what you understand. What is wrong with this sentence? You tired? This is incorrect. There isn't a verb here. The correct question is, are you tired? We need the BE verb. Are you tired? Yes, I am. What is wrong? Are you from California? Yes, I'm. Don't end a yes answer with a contraction. This is incorrect. Are you from California is perfect. Are you from California? Yes, I am. One more. What is wrong? She is at the library? No, she isn't. She's at the bookstore. Right here, this is not question word order. This is incorrect. We have to switch this or reverse the order. Is she at the library? Is she at the library? No, she isn't. She's at the bookstore. In this lesson, you learned to form a question with BE. We switched the word order. Is he confused? He is confused. The question is the reverse order of the statement. Is he confused? Yes, he is. I hope you're not confused.
