‘Be’ in Present Simple: questions

 

To make questions with be in the Present Simple, we put the verb before the subject and add a question mark at the end.

 

Singular	Plural
Am I? Are you? Is he/she/it?	Are we? Are you? Are they?

 

• Are you in the office?
• No, I’m not. I’m still at home.

 

• Is she alone in New York City?
• No, she isn’t. She is with her boyfriend.
• Oh, are they happy to be there together?

 

When we ask questions with be we can use question words like where, when, how, why, etc. To form such questions we put a question word first and put the verb before the subject.

• Where is your brother?
• How are you today?
• Why are you here?

 

The verb be may be contracted:

• What’s your hobby?
• Why’s your toy on the floor?

 

However, we usually do not contract a question word and the are form of be:

• Where are you?
• Where’re you? (not used in most situations)

 

• When are we leaving?
• When’re we leaving? (not used in most situations)