EXAMPLE We should put all these books in that box now, shouldn’t we?
The intonation in most question tags is going down. This means that the speaker expects agreement. So down tags are used a lot in conversations to create agreement and rapport between the speakers. a. Listen and repeat. should you? shouldn't you? could you? couldn’t you? would he? wouldn’t he? He couldn’t cook, could he? She could play football, couldn’t she?
You wouldn’t look, would you? They would like sugar, wouldn’t they?
b. Practise in pairs. Listen and respond, like the example. EXAMPLE
She couldn’t cook. A: She couldn’t Cook, could she? B: No, she couldn’t.
1 We couldn’t cook a cake without sugar. 2 Good footballers shouldn’t eat too much pudding. 3 You should look at some good cookery books. 4 You wouldn’t ‘put your foot in it’*. (*idiom meaning say or do the wrong thing) 5 They wouldn’t ‘cook the books’*. (*idiom meaning change the accounts to steal money)
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