When a conversation STALLS and LOOKS like it might STOP, the best way to SAVE it is to THINK of interesting questions. Questions are easy to think of, because they START with question words, and there are NOT many of those: who, what, which, when, where, how, and why. Or you might want to TRY ASKING a yes/no question. The questions, of course, should be CONNECTED to the topics of conversation that have already COME UP.

The big difference between most English questions（疑問文）and declarative sentences（平常文）is the position of the subject (S=主語の名詞句), verb (V=動詞), and auxiliary verb (m=助動詞). There are three patterns to REMEMBER (and, of course, to practice). The General Pattern (see the 4区 table below) PLACES the subject between an auxiliary verb and the verb (m-S-V). The subject (S) MOVES to the verb's slot（V 区）. This ALLOWS the S 区 to BECOME the Wh- 区 . For a yes/no question（疑問詞無し）we will LEAVE the Wh- 区 completely empty.

Verbs (V) in the progressive and perfect tenses (technically CALLED "aspect") and passive verbs USE the auxiliary verbs (m) Be, Have, and Be respectively. The subject MOVES to a position between them (m and V). If there are two or more auxilliary verbs, the subject only MOVES past the first one.

The simple past and present tenses do NOT HAVE an auxilliary verb in declarative sentences, so the auxillary verb Do（「does」, 「do」, and 「did」）is INSERTED into question sentences in these tenses. Almost all of the examples above USE auxilliary Do.

NOTICE that the past tense, present tense -s, and words of negation are all ATTACHED to the (first) auxilliary verb, NOT the verb. The verb is always in dictionary form（原形）.

The BE verb is a special verb (sometimes CALLED a "copula") and HAS a special pattern for questions. It FOLLOWS the Gerneral Pattern when USED with an auxilliary verb, but NOT for simple present or past tense (see the examples in the 4区 table below). The Do auxillary verb is NOT INSERTED. Instead the subject MOVES past the verb itself (V-S).

There is one more special pattern (see the 4区 table below) that occurs when the question word is the subject, because then the subject does NOT MOVE at all ... it BECOMES the question word (wh/s) and the S 区 BECOMES the Wh- 区. There is no reason for the verb to CHANGE. The simple present and past tenses do NOT NEED auxilliary verb support. The Subject Question Pattern (Wh/s) TRUMPS both the General Pattern and the BE Verb Pattern. (It RULES and they DROOL.)

Questions that BEGIN with 「when」,「where」, and「why」are questions about the +A part of the sentence. I can't THINK of any exceptions ... can you? This pattern, therefore, is RESERVED for「who」,「whose」,「what」,「which」, and sometimes「how」questions. There are, of course, NO yes/no questions（疑問詞が無い）in this pattern. The question word IS the subject. Without it there would be NO subject, and sentences（命令文以外）MUST HAVE a subject.

When you PRACTICE ASKING questions, you should TRY to USE a variety of question words and a variety of verbs. There is also some variety in the way that some of the questions words can be USED:

ASKING yourself questions is Step 4 of Haruna's program to PRACTICE SPEAKING English. You can DO this while REVIEWING a video. ASK yourself questions about it ... we CALL that thinking deeply. Education is SUPPOSED to TRAIN you to THINK deeply. You GET both intellectual stimulation and English practice together ... and it can be fun.