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Ask for help > Need help with question tags!
Need help with question tags!
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*Maria*
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Need help with question tags!
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Dear colleagues! My question is probably a bit strange, but... My students are studying question tags and one of them asked me a very interesting question. They work with people from different countries and have to write letters. What tag shall we use if we don �t know the sex of the person we are writing to? For example, we don �t know if Bo is a man or a woman. Shall we say/write �Bo speaks English well, doesn �t he? � or �doesn �t she? � or �don �t they? �. Hope I �ve made myself clear  . I had never thought about it before he asked . |
7 Dec 2016
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jfaraujo
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Hi Maria, It �s an interesting question and I am not sure whether what I am going to write is right or wrong. Maybe you could write "Bo speaks English well, doesn (s)he and then the question could be addressed either to a man or woman. I hope this helps somehow. |
7 Dec 2016
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MariaBelenSerenity
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Hi, Maria!
My first thought on this is: question tags are used in informal speaking, friendly conversations, so then you probably wouldn �t be using question tags to speak about people that you don �t know. Then, this issue would only come up in class practice situations, and in those cases you can ask the students to pick whether they imagine this person to be a man or a woman.
Anyway, I kind of like the sound of "don �t they" in situations when you strictly don �t know and you are still speaking in this way. Hope it makes sense! |
7 Dec 2016
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ali.h.p
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I thing you should change your question for example : Bo speaks English well, am I right?
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8 Dec 2016
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yanogator
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Even though we commonly use "they" and "their" for one person, I would never ay "Bo speaks English well, don �t they?" It sounds totally unnatural. The "(s)he" suggestion is good, or you could use "he/she". I agree that not using a standard question tag is probably the best solution. I don �t understand why they would be using the third person when writing a letter to that person. Why aren �t they saying "You speak English well, don �t you, Bo?" Bruce |
8 Dec 2016
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*Maria*
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I wish I knew why, Bruce  . But that was a question from my student... |
8 Dec 2016
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FrauSue
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I don �t think that the issue ever comes up in English because we wouldn �t use a question tag structure in a context where we didn �t know anything about the person. If you �re asking for confirmation about your own opinion of Bo �s English level, you must know Bo �s gender already because you have spent time talking to him/her. Of course, the people who write grammar exercises might not take that into account! |
11 Dec 2016
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