Creating interrogative Sentence in Simple Present Tense

When we are talking about our habits, daily activities, and hobbies, we may not only tell our friends about our activities. However, we must ask some questions about that. In a conversation, we often use the interrogative sentence to search some information. Here is a tips from EEL to help students creating a good interrogative sentence in simple present tense.

Different with the positive or affirmative sentence, Predicate in the Interrogative sentence is placed before the subject.

Positive Sentence: S + P

Interogative Sentence: P + S?

Look at the picture bellow:

The examples of interrogative sentence:

Positive Sentence:

• Andy is a doctor.
• They are happy.
• They make a cake.
• She has a car?

Interrogative Sentence:

• Is Andy a doctor?
• Are they happy?
• Do they make a cake?
• Does she has a car?

There are two question types:

1. Yes-No question

Yes-No questions are questions used for confirmation, so you can answer this question using ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Examples:

• Is he a doctor? Yes, he is.
• Are they happy? No, they aren’t.

In Yes-No question, we don’t find the use of question words, such as what, when, where, etc.

2. ‘Wh’ questions

They are used to search the information. The main point is the use of six question words, such as What, Where, When, Why, Who, How. How to construct a ‘Wh’ questions?

Question words + P + S?

Although, we add the question words, we have to remember that predicate comes before subject in the interrogative sentence.

Example:

• What is his name?
• What are they?
• Who am I?
• When do they go?
• Why does she cry?
• How do they do that?

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Creating negative sentence in Simple Present Tense

Since there are two kinds of sentence, nominal and verbal, students usually confuse when they want to construct the negative sentence in Simple Present Tense. In this posting, EEL will give a simple explanation to help students creating negative sentence.

1. Students have to remember that they have to add ‘not’ after the predicate to construct a negative sentence.

2. The negative marker, ‘not’, can be placed after a predicate which is included as ‘be’, such as is, am, and are. For example:

Positive Sentences:

• I am a teacher.
• He is happy.
• They are sad.

Negative sentence:

• I am not a teacher.
• He is not a happy.
• They are not sad.

3. The negative marker ‘not’ cannot be placed after a predicate which is a verb. As a result, you have to place ‘not’ after the auxiliary verb ‘do’. For example:

Positive Sentences:

• They cook the noodles.
• We sing a song.
• He speaks English

Negative sentence:

• They do not cook the noodles.
• We do not sing a song.
• He does* not speak English.

*'Do' changes into 'does' when it is used in a sentence which employs singular subject. Remember that in a simple present tense, the sentences which are using the singular subject must be followed by verb 1 + suffix s/es. Another example:

Positive sentence:

• He makes a toy.
• My father plays the guitar.

Negative Sentence:

• He does not make a toy.
• My father does not play the guitar.

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Part of Speech, The Basic of English

Before you can construct a sentence, you have to know the part of speech. What are they? Let’s see the part of speech categories below:

1. Verb
it refers to some actions or activities and it links the subject to a complement. In the sentence, verb usually has a function to be the predicate.

Examples: sing, play, watch, eat, have, take, am, are, go, visit, etc.

2. Adverb
It modifies a verb or an adjective. Many adverbs have the suffix -ly.

Examples: slowly, absolutely, neatly, carefully, etc

Example in some sentences:

He drives slowly.

You have to open it carefully.

3. Noun
it names an object or action. There are two kinds of nouns. They are Common nouns which refer to ordinary things and proper nouns which are usually capitalized and refer to persons, specific things or specific places.

Examples:

Common Noun : Animal, Plant, Ocean, Forest, etc.

Proper noun: Azys, Joko, Atlantic Ocean, Bali Island, etc

4. Adjective
it has a function to modify a noun.

Examples: black, large, big, red, comfortable, etc.

Example in some sentences:

I have a black bag.

This is a clean room

My comfortable house is close the mountain.

5. Article
it is usually used in front of noun. There are definite and indefinite article. The definite article is the which indicate the specific things. While, the indefinite article is a / an. Article a is used for the nouns which begin from the consonant vowels, for example: A book, A bag, A flower. Article an is used with the nouns which begin from vocal vowels, for example: An egg, An Apple, An Airplane, etc.

6. Conjunction
it is the connector of words or group of words. Example: and, or, but, so, after, etc.

7. Preposition
it indicates the relationship of objects.

Examples: in, under, on, etc.

8. Pronoun
it can be used to substitute a noun.

Examples: he, this, she, it, etc.

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Using Imperative Sentence

Bossy Woman Giving An Order

Imperative Sentence usually uses to give command and prohibition to other people. The imperative sentence is usually ended with an exclamation mark (!). It is usually used in the procedure text. In the Imperative sentences, you can find the same subject. That is ‘You’. How it can be?

Pay attention to these following examples:

• Close the door!
• Open the windows!
• Could you speak louder!

Imagine if someone talks to you using those sentences. Who is being ordered? That’s you, isn’t it? It means that all the imperative sentences employ ‘You’ as the subject.

The imperative sentence function:

I. To give command:

• Clean the whiteboard!
• Sit down, please!
• Go to your room!

II. To prohibit someone to do something:

• Don’t go to that school!
• Don’t leave me!
• Don’t forget to study!

Basically, you don’t need to write the subject when you are writing an imperative sentence. You can use the predicate which is usually a verb. How can you create an imperative sentence using certain adjective? Pay attention to the example bellow:

To give command:

• Be quite, please!
• Be Happy!
• Be nice!

To prohibit someone to do something:

• Don’t be so fool!
• Don’t be sad!
• Don’t be lazy, students!

It’s easy, isn’t it? You can put ‘be’ to replace ‘verb’.

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Simple Future Tense

Simple future tense refers to some activities which don’t happen yet. It means that it can be used to tell our plan or our expectation. In addition, we can also use future tense to tell our promise, prediction and even habits.

1. Planned Action

To tell the planned action or activity which is predicted regarding to the present situation,

We can use future ‘going to’.

Example:

• I’m going to go fishing after school.
• I’m going to clean my room tomorrow.

Formula : S + be (is, am, and are)+ going + to + V1

2. Unplanned Action, Promise and Habits

To tell about the unplanned action or spontaneous decisions, we can use modal ‘will’

Example:

• I will open the door. It’s so hot.
• I will clean the dirty spot on your shirt.

To tell promise:

• I will buy you a computer.
• I will be back soon. I promise.

To tell habits

• Ary will shiver when he is talking to her.
• I will play when my brother is studying.

Formula : S + Will + V1

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Conditional Sentences or If-Clauses Type I, II and III

 A conditional sentence usually begins with 'if' and says that something must be true or happen before something else can be true or happen. 

There are three types of Conditional Sentences

1. Conditional Sentence Type 1

It is possible and also very likely that the condition will be fulfilled.

Form: if + Simple Present, will-Future

Example: 

• If I find her address, I’ll send her an invitation.
• If I meet her, I'll ask her for diner. 
• If I go to Solo, I'll buy a batik clothes.

2. Conditional Sentence Type 2

It is possible but very unlikely, that the condition will be fulfilled.

Form: if + Simple Past, past future (= would + Infinitive)

Example: 

• If I found her address, I would send her an invitation.
• If I talked to her, I would give her the flower.
• If she loved me, I would marry her.

3. Conditional Sentence Type 3

It is impossible that the condition will be fulfilled because it refers to the past.

Form: if + Past Perfect, past future perfect (= would + have + Past Participle)

Example:

• If I had found her address, I would have sent her an invitation.
• If I had studied English last night, I would have passed the test.
• If I had worked harder, I would have had a car.

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Simple Past Tense

It is used to tell the past events. We can find the use of simple past tense in some text genre, such as recount and narrative text. In writing the simple past tense sentences, we need to use Verb II as the predicate.

In Simple Present tense sentences, we may find the use of past adverb of time, such as: yesterday, ago and last.

We can find two different sentences in the simple past tense. They are:

Nominal Sentence

This sentence employs past form of ‘Be’ (was/were) as the predicate. It means that we don’t use any verb in this sentence. In the other words, we don’t find any activity in nominal sentences.

Formula: Subject + was/were + Noun/adjective

Example:

• I was a teacher.
• I was sad yesterday.
• Andy was very bad.
• They were clever students.
• Maradona and Van Basten were football players.

Singular Subject + was

Plural Subject + were

Verbal Sentence:

This Sentence uses ‘verb II’ as the predicate.

Formula:

Subject + Verb II*

Example:

• He played soccer yesterday.
• I cleaned my room two days ago.
• She bought the souvenir at Bali last week.
• I had breakfast this morning.

*Remember there are two kind of verbs, they are:

Regular verb: if it modifies into past, we need to add suffix –ed, for example:

V1                               V2

Work                        Worked

Wash                         Washed

Learn                         Learned

Cook                         Cooked

Irregular verb: if it modifies into past, we can’t predict the changes, for example:

V1                               V2

Bring                          Brought

Eat                             Ate

Go                             Went

Take                          Took

More irregular verb 

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Simple Present Tense

It is used to tell the daily activities or habitual actions. Besides, it also can be used to tell the general fact. We can find the use of simple present tense in several text genre, such as descriptive, explanation, report and exposition.

In Simple Present tense sentences, we may find the use of adverb of frequency, such as always, often, usually, seldom, rarely, etc. The adverb of time which is often used in the simple present tense sentences is ‘every’.

We can find two different sentences in the simple present tense. They are:

Nominal Sentence

This sentence employs ‘Be’ (is, am, are) as the predicate. It means that we don’t use any verb in this sentence. In the other words, we don’t find any activity in nominal sentences.

Formula: Subject + is/am/are + Noun/adjective

Example:

• I am a teacher.
• I am sad.
• He is happy
• Andy is very nice.
• They are clever students.
• Rooney and Berbatov are football players.

Verbal Sentence:

This Sentence uses ‘verb’ as the predicate.

Formula:

For the plural subject and subject ' I '= S + V1

You

We          +       Verb 1

They

I

Example:

• They sing a song.
• Joko and Hendry clean the room.
• We play soccer.
• I like noodle.

For the Singular Subject: S + V1 + suffix s/es

• He
• She     +     Verb I + suffix s/es
• It

Example:

He cleans his room.

Danny likes apple.

The car runs fast.

Learn more about simple present tense, click the following article:

Creating negative sentence using simple present tense 
Creating interrogative Sentence in Simple Present Tense

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Suffixes That Show Profesion

The use of Suffix –er, man, -ist, -ent, -or

The suffix mentioned above is refers to the person who is doing something.

For example:

Teacher

Teach         => a kind of activities in the class

Teach + er  => a person who teaches

Another example: Player, Robber, Writer, Carpenter, engineer, etc

Policeman

Police            => a department that used to serve the citizen

Police + man  => a person who works in the police department

Another example: postman, laundryman, weatherman,etc

Philatelist

Philately        => collecting stamps

Philately + ist => a person who collects stamps

Another example: Artist, Journalist, Columnist, Finalist, receptionist

Student

A person who studies

Study          => a learning activity

Study + ent  => a person who Studies

 Supervisor

Supervise      => the supervising activity

Supervis + or => a person who supervise
Another example: Contractor, conductor, etc 

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