40 Questions with What: Guide & Examples

Questions with what are pretty common, they are part of every conversation, they could be simple or complex.

Questions with what can be made with different tenses in English such as the past and present continuous

These are examples of questions with what that you can use to understand the structure of such questions and as discussion questions in the classroom



Personal Information Questions with What

These are some examples of questions with what:

  1. What’s your name?
  2. What do you do for a living?
  3. what kind of music do you like?
  4. What kind of movies do you like?
  5. What school did you go to?
  6. What do you study in college?
  7. What’s your best friend’s name?
  8. What’s your email address?
  9. What’s your phone number?
  10. What street do you live on?

Questions with What and the Present Continuous

These are some examples of questions with what and the present continuous tense

  1. What are you watching?
  2. What are you listening to?
  3. What are you playing?
  4. What are you doing now?
  5. What are you going to do this weekend?
  6. What’s she doing now?
  7. What are you reading?
  8. What are you cooking?
  9. What are you talking about?
  10. What are you discussing?
  11. What are they thinking?
  12. What video game are they playing?

Questions with What and the Past Simple

These are some examples of questions with what and the past simple

  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What did you watch last night?
  3. What did you eat yesterday?
  4. What time did they go home?
  5. What time did you wake up today?
  6. What did you have for breakfast?
  7. What did you study for the test?
  8.  What did you bring for lunch?
  9. What did you do after school?
  10. What did you buy from the supermarket?

Questions with What and the Past Continuous

These are some examples of questions with what and the past continuous tense

  1. What were they talking about when I called?
  2. What were you doing at the time of the accident?
  3. What were you doing when I entered the room?
  4. What was she looking at?
  5. What were they reading?
  6. What were they doing when we got here?
  7. What were you doing when I called?
  8. What was he fixing when you called him?
  9. What were the twins doing while we watched TV?
  10. What were you cooking?
  11. What were they watching when the movie started?
  12. What were they playing when we arrived?

Question with What and Answers

These are some questions with what with their answers

  • What were you cooking?
  • They were making past
  • What were you doing?
  • I was watching Rick and Morty
  • What are you talking about?
  • About the problems we had with a gang
  • What were they reading?
  • They were reading the Tokyo Revengers manga
  • What did you buy from the Supermarket?
  • I bought a couple of drinks

More ESL Conversation Questions

If you are looking for more resources to practice your English skills or have meaningful conversations with your students, I’ve compiled a list of some posts with conversation questions.

Check them out before your leave:

  1. 50 Questions with How: Grammar Guide & Examples
  2. Questions with Who: Grammar Guide & Examples
  3. Past Continuous Questions for the ESL Classroom
  4. 40 Questions with Will: Guide & Examples
  5. 40 Present Perfect Questions
  6. 30 Present Continuous Questions
  7. 40 Simple Present Questions for the ESL Classroom
Manuel Campos, English Professor

Manuel Campos

Hi, I am Manuel Campos, The Professor behind GatherLessons.com. I am from Costa Rica and I currently teach English at UTN