Hello, there. My name is Ronnie. What's your
name? Who are you? Where are you? And what are the five "wh" questions in English? Can
you name them? Six, I got six. Let's go to the board and see.
In English, we have five very common "wh" questions. People will say the five "wh" questions
-- there they are. Repeat with me: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Who, what, when,
where, why, how; six. Again: who, what, when, where, why, how.
When I was learning Japanese and Spanish, the very, very, first thing that I learned
was the five "wh" questions in Japanese and the five "wh" questions in Spanish. So I recommend
that you remember these in English. You've got five -- six very important questions that
you can ask anytime, anywhere, at any place necessary.
You may look at this and go, "Okay, I see w-h-o, 'who', w-h, w-h, w-h, w-h -- what the?
What?" This confused me as a child. "Teacher, why is 'h-o-w' a 'wh' question? What's happening
here? What have you done to my young brain?" And then I looked at it -- go, "Oh, there's
an 'h' and a 'w', hee hee hee. So it is a "hw", "wh" question. You've got your six.
So let's go through and think about why we would use these 'wh' questions for conversation.
Have you ever had a really boring conversation with someone? I have -- all the time, every
day. We say it's "like pulling teeth" to get someone to speak to you or have a conversation,
which means -- pulling teeth -- it's painful. The person is not interested in what you're
saying. You would rather talk to the wall than speak to this person. So here's how not
to be boring when you're trying to have a conversation with someone. Someone may ask
you a question, for example, "What did you do yesterday?" Most of you go, "Nothing."
Wow, you're a really cool, exciting person. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Bye-bye.
So you can say something simple like, "I ate dinner." Good. We've got something. So you
can then continue the conversation with the person and say, "Who? Who? Who? Who cooked
the dinner?" And the person says, "My mom." Cool, okay, so you know that this person ate
dinner -- so they can't be that boring -- and then you know that they have a mother: two
points. Can you think of a "what" question you could
ask someone about dinner? "What did you eat?", or "What did you mother cook?" Okay? "What
did she cook?" And the person goes, "Food". And at this point, I would give up and carry
on to a different conversation with another person like you.
So I could say to you, "Hello. When did you start studying English?" And you say, "Five
years ago." Perfect, okay? So "When did you start?" Now, you don't have to talk about
English all the time because that's kind of boring. Maybe you know that the person does
sports, or the person likes drawing or painting, so you can say, "When did you start playing
a sport? When did you start playing football?" Usually people like to talk about football.
People like to talk about their favourite team -- Manchester United, Barcelona. So if
you can start the person talking on something they like, your conversation is going to go
amazingly. So what about a "where" question? Maybe you
are at a meeting, or you're in a very awkward social situation where you have to speak to
people, and maybe the person is not from your country. You can ask them a very simple question,
like "Where are you from?" And maybe the person says, "I'm from Canada." And then, "Really?
Ronnie's from Canada. Do you know Ronnie?" And the person goes, "No." "Okay, that's good."
Can you think of a "why" question you could ask someone? Let's talk about food. "Why did
your mother cook food?" That's a strange question. "Why do you like football?" "Why did you start
studying English?" Okay? And then this crazy one, "how" -- this is
kind of a strange question, but there are techniques. You could say, "how long -- how
long have you studied English for?", or "How long did you live in your home country?" "How
long did you work at your job?" "How long did you live?" Maybe you're talking to a ghost.
That would be cool. And then you say, "Ghost, how long did you live?" Okay? "How long did
you live in your country?" So, what's very, very, very, very, very, very,
very important and that I almost forgot was, because these are questions, you need to always
have a question mark when you're writing. When you're speaking, you know the person
is asking you a question because your voice goes up. So I wouldn't say, "What did she
cook." I would say, "What did she cook?" Every single time in English, you ask a question
-- your voice goes up at the end of the question so the person knows it's their chance to answer,
and not to be boring. You've got homework. The next time you have
a conversation with someone in English or in your language, think of one of the six
"wh" questions you could ask them. Or if you're really ambitious, think of six "wh" questions
you could ask them to continue your conversation. If you'd like more great continuing conversation
bits, go to www.engvid.com. Toodles.
