Name: 925 English Video Lesson 27 - Using Questions to Ask for Details | Business English Lesson
Uploaded: 2026-01-12T17:02:46.000Z
Duration: 9 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Present continuous

You're learning with nine to five English Business English for the workplace.

Hi, Tim, here with another 9 to 5 English lesson.

Future simple

In today's lesson, we're going to learn how to ask for details using questions.

Now, it would be great if everyone always told us exactly what we need to know, but

When we want detailed information, we need to go out and get it.

You can confirm information with simple yes, no questions, like, do you sell printers?

But I want to start by looking at questions that get different kinds of information, not just a yes or no answer.

And one of the best ways to get information is.

You might also use how, which has a W and an H, but

You just start with your WH word and then use an appropriate helping verb.

For example, you might ask, when will the next podcast be available?

But you might also start with who is or why are or what does.

How about some practice with asking some WH questions?

Listen to each example, then repeat it for yourself.

Who is going to take care of public relations?

As we can see, WH questions are a good way of getting specific information.

I mean, you can know exactly what details you want.

But before you ask for specific details with WH questions, you might need to get some general information.

In that case, you can ask a polite indirect question to get started.

You might say, could you or can you tell me more?

Or you might say, do you know anything about something?

Let's try asking for information using indirect questions.

Remember to repeat the examples after you hear them.

Do you know anything about Devon Inc. Can you send me some information on your company?

Would you be able to tell me about the training session?

Of course, when you ask someone if they can or could give you information, you're not asking about their ability to give you information.

You're just saying, please give me some information.

Ok, so I talked briefly about basic yes or no questions for confirming information.

Now I want to show you a different way to confirm information using tag questions.

You just start with a statement that you want to confirm, like you sell printers.

Then you add the little question tag at the end, in this case, it would be, don't you?

And the complete question would be, you sell printers, don't you?

Depending on the situation, you might need to change your tag to something else.

Like aren't they or isn't it or doesn't it?

Let's try some practice on using tag questions once again.

You're going to give us some samples, aren't you?

There's more information on the website, isn't there?

The session runs for two hours, doesn't it?

Hopefully you noticed that if your statement is positive, then your tag question is negative.

But if your statement is negative, then your tag question has to be positive.

For example, you would say, you're not going to the conference, are you?

So we've practiced some different ways of asking for details, but

how do these questions sound in a conversation?

Let's listen to a short dialogue between Nick and Tina.

Tina wants some details about a sales boot camp or training session that Nick's company is running.

We are running a sales boot camp next Thursday.

Could you tell me where it will take place?

First, Tina asks indirectly about where the session will take place.

Then she uses a tag question to confirm that the session is open to everyone.

We'll repeat the dialogue, but this time we're going to beep out the second speaker's words.

Remember to ask about the location using could you tell me?

And then confirm that it's open to everyone with a tag question.

For this lesson, we've learned some great ways to use questions to to ask for detail.

We'll be back soon with some more useful English expressions.