By Present tenses, Word order

Hi all!I've been giving English conversation lessons to a theology professor for about a year now. He's getting on in the years - a couple years from retirement - and his primary goal has been just to get his spoken English going a little stronger. His mother tongue is French but he's...

Hi NaderI'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. Has he talking? is wrong. You could say: Has he been talking?If you are asking whether a have or has question can always be formed by changing the word order, the answer is no. It is safer to use do in the present tense:Does he have...

I always thought it was a remnant of the French (Norman Invasion, 1066). There is a handful of verbs in French conjugated with "to be" rather than "to have" in the passé composé (past) tense. Rise, born, arrive, leave, go (all "coming and going" verbs) are some examples. We also sing "He is...

Oh, it's "formal" indeed. I clean forgot this word. Clive, I don't mind any your comments! Honestly, now I am confused why I was sure that you know it! sounds odd whereas other such phrases don't. Is there any ways by means of which I can find out whether present tense may be used or not in a...

Hello Xavier, you're right of course: Communication is one of the tasks of language. The Grammar is "late": Language follows special patterns (word order, inflection, cases, conjugation, etc) - language has to follow those patterns as without them, communication wouldn't be possible. The only...

It's "...do you not like". I suppose the answer is that the negation of "to like" is "not to like". So, in the present tense, the negation of "like" is "not like". The correct word order is therefore "...do you not like". However, as you quite rightly point out, it *IS* abbreviated to "don't...