WH Questions – English Grammar Lessons

WH questions are very common in English. The lesson below shows you how to use them correctly. You can find the exercises at the bottom of the page.

Let’s get started with the lesson.

WH questions ask for information. Here are the six questions and their answers:

Question	Answer	Example
What	Thing	What is your name?
When	Time	When is the party?
Who	Person	Who is your brother?
Where	Place	Where is the bank?
Why	Reason	Why do you like pizza?
How	Directions	How do you spell your name?

WH Questions Structure

WH questions in the simple present use “do” or “be”. Take a look at the structure for each of these verbs.

Do

WH + DO/DOES + SUBJECT + VERB

Take a look at some examples:

Where do you work?
When does she wake up?
Who is your brother?

Be

WH + BE + SUBJECT

Here are the examples:

Where are you from?
Who is that man?
When is your class?

Open and Closed Questions

In English you will find two main types of questions: open and closed. Closed questions have simpe answers with few options. Open questions have many options.

WH Questions are similar to YES/NO questions , but they have WH words at the start. Let’s look at an example of a yes/no question:

Now, take a look at similar question, but with a WH word:

Where are you from?

The first question had an answer of yes or no (Yes, I am from Canada). The second question could have many different answers (Japan, Brazil, Poland, etc.). This is the difference. One is open and the other is closed.

Here are some example questions and answers:

Where are you from?
I am from India.

What is your name?
My name is Jacob.

When do you wake up?
I wake up at 7:30 am.

Why are you angry?
I am angry because I did not pass my exam.

With the explanation and examples, you can begin using who, what, where, when, why, and how questions. You will need them very often to communicate in English.

Do you think you’re ready to try some tests? Use the links below: