Questions like “Do you live here?” “Where is the station?” or “Is this your bag?” are good because they are short. But because they are short, they are also simple to commit to memory without understanding them. Students memorize a whole question a few times and may still not understand one word. But you don’t want to have a memorized sentence in your head. You want to understand that question sentence enough that you could change it slowly and correctly, if you had to.
Basic English questions have a small frame. It is in the same frame as the sentence “Do you like tea?.” The frame is “Do you like? ….” You can add coffee, or music, or English. So you could say, “Do you like coffee?,” “Do you like music?,” or “Do you like English?.” These are better than memorizing ten separate questions because they get you to start hearing the pattern. You are practicing the word do, the word you, the word like, and the changing object.
Start a practice session with one question frame and some known words. Let’s do one called, “Do you have?” You can fill in the end of the frame with words you know: a pen, a phone, a notebook, time, or a question. Say each question aloud and give a short answer: “Yes, I do” or “No, I don’t.” Try to speak the questions with a normal slow rhythm. It is possible that, by speaking the questions fast, you are not really practicing anything. The short answer is important because it is not about just memorizing a grammatical rule. It is about speaking and listening together.
The frame for “Where is ?” is useful because it links questions to the names of everyday objects and places. Questions can be, “Where is my phone?,” “Where is the bus stop?,” or “Where is the bathroom?” Give answers like, “It is on the table?,” “It is near the bank?,” or “It is at the station?.” This introduces prepositions like in, on, at, and near in a natural way, rather than learning them as isolated words.
Some students don’t like to change the question in their practice because they are afraid to ruin it. But controlled change makes a question sentence better. Change just one thing in a sentence. If your sentence is, “Do you work today?,” try first changing just the subject, “Does she work today?.” Then notice that you do now have does and that your verb work returns to not work, not works. This kind of subtle correction can help you deal with one of the most confusing beginner problems, when you put both a helper word and verb ending together in the same sentence.
It is better to have many small dialogues than one big, memorized script. You can also do a two-line dialogue: “Do you study English? Yes, I study English every day.” Then change one word, such as French, music, grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary. You can also change the sentence answer. It doesn’t even have to be yes. You can say, “No, I study English on weekends.” Keep these mini dialogues short. But as you change a little, you are training yourself for a conversation. And that is what the real conversation is all about.
To practice, listen for the first word of the question: Do, Does, Is, Are, Where, What, When. All those tell you something about what the answer will be. Then look at the subject and the verb. And that is a great review for many beginner questions. You don’t need to memorize a long sentence when you can hear the question frame, change just one word in the question, give the short answer, and make the answer match the question.