Question

The children had to collect rubbish, didn’t they? или The children had to collect rubbish, had not they? С объяснением

Answer 1

The children had to collect rubbish, didn’t they?

Потому что, глагол (had) стоит в прошедшем времени.

Answer 2

The correct sentence is: "The children had to collect rubbish, didn't they?"

In English, when forming a question in the past tense, we often use auxiliary verbs to help us. In this case, the auxiliary verb is "did." The negative form of the auxiliary verb "do" is "did not" or its contraction "didn't." We use "did" or "didn't" before the subject to form a question or a negative sentence.

Let's break down the sentence:

1. Original sentence: "The children had to collect rubbish."
2. To convert it into a question, we add the auxiliary verb "did": "did the children have to collect rubbish."
3. Finally, for a more natural and contracted form, we use "didn't": "The children had to collect rubbish, didn't they?"

Regarding the alternative option you provided: "The children had to collect rubbish, had not they?" - This construction is grammatically incorrect. The correct negative question form is "had they not" or the contraction "hadn't they." However, it is not commonly used in modern English. The more common and natural way to form a negative question is using "didn't," as shown in the correct sentence.