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  • 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.

Hello, there. My name is Ronnie. What's your name? Who are you? Where are you? And what

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