Monday, August 27, 2007

The difference between "Do you" and "Are you"

A non English speaker learning English is often confused in using Do you or Are you in yes/no question. Indonesian learners, for example, often make yes/no questions as follows:

- Are you come here everyday ?
- Do you at home every night?
- Are you work here ?
- etc.

All the sentences above are not correct. Are is the auxiliary verb called to be which is used in the sentence which does not have verb, while Do is used in the sentence which has a verb. Both Are and Do are used in present tense (look at the explanation of present tense). The correct use of Do and Are is as follows:

1. Do you come here everyday?
2. Are you at home every night? (the sentence does not have a verb)
3. Do you work?
4. Are you a student? (the sentence does not have a verb)
5. Do you teach English?

4 comments:

selva said...

thanks for your useful dips... till this time i got much confusion about using "Do" and "Are"....

Memoirs said...

but, if you say something like -
"are you studying for your exams?" -

vu cong hoang said...

thanks...

vu cong hoang said...

thanks...