OBJECT QUESTIONS (preguntas objeto): Son las preguntas que hacemos para saber sobre QUIÉN o QUÉ recae la acción que realiza el sujeto.Tienen la siguiente estructura:

[Pronombre interrogativo + Auxiliar + Sujeto + Verbo + ?]

Ejemplos de este tipo de preguntas son:"Who did you tell?" (¿A quién se lo dijiste?) En español se reconocen por comenzar por "A quién"."What does she usually read?" (¿Qué lee ella?)"Who does she know?" (¿A quién conoce ella?)

Las oraciones con dos objetos admiten dos OBJECT QUESTIONS diferentes:"She gave the money to Michael."Question 1: "What did she give to Michael?" Answer 1: "The money."Question 2: "Who did she give the money to?" Answer 2:"To Michael."

SUBJECT QUESTIONS   (preguntas sujeto): Son las preguntas que hacemos cuando queremos saber QUIÉN o QUÉ realiza la acción. Tienen una estructura diferente a las object questions:

[Pronombre interrogativo + Verbo + Objeto + ?]

Por ejemplo:"Who told you?" (¿Quién te lo dijo?)"Who lives her?" (¿Quién vive aquí?)"What killed the dog?" (¿Qué mató al perro?)

1) Look at these questions. Write "subject" or "object" in the gaps 

1. Who is knocking on the door?          2. What do you want?  3. Who do you want to see?  

4. Who can go shopping?        5. What will I give him? 

6. Who cooks dinner every day?     

7. Where do you have your car?      

8. What has just crashed?     9. Who are you talking to? 10. Who will show us the way? 

11. What instrument does the man play?   12. Who gave you that? 

13. What is Ana studying now?    

14. Who did you go to the party with?     

15. How much chocolate  have you eaten?         

2) Write the numbers of the previous questions in these answers

 1. I went with Tina's brother 

2. He plays the saxo 3. John is 

4. Martha did 5. Mr. Stevenson can 

6. Peter does 7. It is next to the police station 

8. not much 9. I think she is studying English 

10. I want two bottles of milk, please 11. My sister will 

12. I will give him my old cars colletion 13. Two cars have 

14. I'm talking to my mother 15. I want to see my favourite actress 

 

3) Write a suitable question to answer the bold words in each sentence.You need to write the question mark as well.1.   I heard a dog barking2.    Pam and his husband phoned the police3.   I will bring a bottle of wine tomorrow4.   George did this problem5.   Helen can play basketball6.   John cooked a roast beef7.   My friend   gave me this ring 

4) Order the following words, so that you can make a subject/object question 

1. yesterday What happened ? 2. did to Who with go  the you party ? 

3. they last broadcast on did TV night What  ? 4. spiders  know What you do about ? 5. by travelled plane Who ? 6. computers you many How have got? 7. discovered Who America?  

Look at the following prompts and decide if the required question is a subject or object question.

Choose the correct questions using the following prompts. You should ask a question about the word underlined:

1. I bought a newspaper this morning.

     What bought you this morning?

     What did you buy this morning?

     What you did buy this morning?2. Something odd happened during the storm last night.

     What happened during the storm last night?

     What did happen during the storm last night?

3. One of the students didn't do the final exam.

     Who didn't the final exam do?

     Who didn't do the final exam?

4. I wrote a romantic letter to one of the teachers.

     Who did you write a romantic letter to?

     Who wrote you a romantic letter?

5. Something disturbed me when I was working.

     What did you disturb when you were working?

     What disturbed you when you were working?

     What did disturb you when you were working?

6. I dreamt about a strange animal last night.

     What did you dream about last night?

     What dreamed about you last night?

7. Somebody rang me at 3am last week!

     Who did you ring at 3am last week?

     Who you rang at 3am last week?

     Who rang you at 3am last week?

8. Someone gave me a watch for my birthday.

     Who gave you a watch for your birthday?

     Who did give you a watch for your birthday?

WRITING QUESTIONS - Subject vs. Object QuestionsStudy these sample questions:

SUBJECT QUESTION: A subject question asks about the subject of the sentence.Do NOT change the word order of the question.

ANSWER QUESTIONGina is fixing the computer.    Who is fixing the computer?An accident happened last week.    What happened last week?

OBJECT QUESTION: An object question asks about the object of the sentence.You MUST change the word order of the question.

ANSWER QUESTIONGina met Mary.    Whom did Gina meet? <--formalGina met Mary.    Who did Gina meet? <--informalFrank saw an accident.    What did Frank see?

Directions: Write a question about the underlined section of each answer below. Use WHO for people and WHAT for things. Use informal English.

1.      The doctor is working with the nurse.

2.      The doctor told the nurse to draw blood.

3.      The repairman worked on the computer yesterday.

4.      The repairman worked on the computer yesterday.

5.      The woman wrote a long letter.

6.      The woman wrote a long letter.

7.      The teacher gave the student some advice.

8.      The teacher gave the student some advice.

9.      The robber demanded all the money in the cash register.

9.      The robber asked for all the money in the cash register.

Subject/Object questions

Sometimes you might see questions like this.

Who broke the window? What happened next? Who told you that?

There is no auxiliary verb and the word order is not inverted.

These are called subject questions – because the question word is the subject of the sentence.

Look at these two questions.

Who does Romeo love? Romeo loves Juliet. Who loves Romeo? Juliet loves Romeo.

In the first question, Romeo is the subject of the verb.In the second question ‘who’ is the subject and Romeo is the object.

OBJECT QUESTIONS

These are the most common questions. Have a look at the structure:

Question Word + Auxiliary + Subject + Verb + Optional Object or Complement + ?The Question Words are usually: what, where, when, who, why, which, how.

Example: What did you see last Saturday evening on TV?

SUBJECT QUESTIONS

These are not the most common but you can find them anywhere and at any time:

Question Word + Verb + Optional Object or Complement + ?The Question Words can be WHO or WHAT, because they can be the subject of the question.REMEMBER: Where, when, why (etc.) can't be the subject of any question.

Example: "Who won the Eurovision Contest 2008?" "Russia". As you can see, the answer of the question is the IDENTITY of the QUESTION WORD "Who". That's why we call these questions SUBJECT QUESTIONS.

1) Subject question

Question word Verb Rest Subject Verb Object - Place - Time

Who runs to the shop? Peter runs to the shop.

What happened yesterday? A tragedy happened yesterday.

2) Object question

Question word Auxiliary Subject Verb Rest Answer

Who do you like?   I like my mum.

Who did Mandy phone last Monday? Mandy phoned her uncle.

What do you read?   I read detective stories.

NOTE!

Subject question Object question

Who phoned John? Who did John phone?

A ver, hasta ahora todas las preguntas que habéis visto tenían siempre la estructura:(Question word, es decir, what, when...., y que es opcional) + Auxiliar (ya sea do, did, have...) + sujeto (he, Mary, my parents...) + verbo?

Esta estructura funciona como norma general en todos los casos, y las utilizamos para preguntar - por el lugar:Where did she go?- por el tiempo:When is your birtday?- por el objeto directo:What did the fish eat? / ¿qué comió el pez?Who did you see? / ¿A quién viste?- etc...

Sin embargo, cuando estamos preguntando acerca de QUIÉN realizó la acción, es decir, acerca del SUJETO, esa estructura no funciona, sino que debemos dejar la pregunta como si se tratara de una oración afirmativa, sin auxiliar y sin cambio de orden.Es decir, si yo quiero preguntar ¿Qué se comió al pez? o ¿Quién te vio?, lo que voy buscando, la respuesta que necesito es quién o qué realiza la acción, el sujeto. Por eso, la construiríamos de la siguiente forma: What ate the fish? / Who saw you?Si os fijáis, la respuesta a estas preguntas es tan fácil como sustituir el what o el who por el sujeto en cuestión: The cat ate the fish / Mary saw you

Si me encuentro la frase: Peter kissed Mary, hay dos preguntas que puedo hacer. La primera, puedo preguntar por el objeto directo, que es Mary, para lo que utilizaré la estructura de siempre: Who did Peter kiss? MaryLa segunda, puedo preguntar por el sujeto, que es Peter, para lo que utilizaré la estructura que parece una oración afirmativa: Who kissed Mary? Peter

There are two main types of question in English.

Subject Questions: You want to know who/what does something.??? ate my chocolate.

Who ate my chocolate?Object Questions: You want to know what someone did, or to whom/where/when.

Tom ate ???

What did Tom eat?

Subject questions are easy to make. You just use 'who' or 'what' instead of the subject of the sentence.

Who wrote Hamlet? (answer: Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.Who is going home? (answer: My sister is going home.)

Object questions are more common but more difficult to make. You need an auxiliary verb (do, be, have ...) before the subject, and a main verb (go, make, think ...) after it.

Question Word

Auxiliary

Subject

Verb

What are you doing?

Where do they live?

How long have webeen waiting?

How well can he swim?

Subject/Object Questions

Practice: Write the question for each of these sentences. For example:

1. ??? kissed you. = 

2. Tom kissed ??? = 

1. Sarah eats ??? every day.

What   every day?2. ??? eats chocolate every day.

Who  every day?3. ??? met Sam.

Who  ?4. James met ???. 

Who  ?5. ??? is writing a letter.

Who  a letter?6. Jo is writing a ???.

What  ?

Who kissed

Who did To

7. Cats eat ???

What  ?8. ??? eats mice?

What animal  ?9. Simon is going to ???.

Where  ?10. ??? is going to Germany.

Who  to Germany?