Grammar: Clause: Using clauses to interact

Tag questions Back

Giving answers to tag questions: Student problems

Students often have difficulty responding to tag questions appropriately, especially when the tag is positive following a negative Statement:

Question: You're not Japanese, are you?
Answer: Yes.

If you ask someone this type of question, the answer you are expecting is no, ie here, you think that they are not Japanese:

However, if you ask someone this question and they are Japanese, a typical answer would not be simply "Yes." but something like this:

Question: You're not Japanese, are you?
Answer: Oh yes, I am!

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