WHAT ON EARTH?

Want to sound like a native English speaker? Start using expressions when you speak and your spoken English will start sounding more natural and ‘on earth’ is a great expression you can add to your questions.

‘On earth’ is used for emphasis in questions and it can often show surprise or frustration.

 

How is it used?

We use ‘on earth’ is typically used in questions that start with ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘where’. It cannot be used if there are no question words used before.

The question order stays the same and ‘on earth’ goes after the question word and before the auxiliary verb. It can be used with any tense past, present, future etc.

 

Examples

  1. Where on earth are you going?! You need to do your homework.
  2. What on earth are you doing?
  3. Where on earth is Mike? He said he’d be here at 8pm and it’s nearly 8.30.
  4. How on earth did James get a senior job in marketing? He has literally just left university.

 

Your Turn

Put 'on earth' in the following questions in the correct position, then check the answers (below).

  1. Why is James working so much at the moment? He has no free time. It’s ridiculous!
  2. Where did you get that jacket? It’s gorgeous!
  3. You are 2 hours late! When are you going to arrive?
  4. Are these flowers for me? You are so generous. How did you know it was my birthday?
  5. I can’t believe you have been made redundant. What are you going to do?
  6. Who would buy this house? It is overpriced and in the middle of nowhere.
  7. Tom the project is overdue. The deadline was over a month ago. When are you going to hand it in?
  8. Where is Hondarribia? I have never heard of it.

 

So give it a go next time you have a conversation in English. And if you are looking for more expressions to make your English more natural and fluent, why don’t you check out my blog post on body part idioms below?

 

12 ENGLISH IDIOMS THAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW: PARTS OF THE BODY

 

 

 

Answers

  1. Why one earth is James working so much at the moment? He has no free time. It’s ridiculous!
  2. Where one earth did you get that jacket? It’s gorgeous!
  3. You are 2 hours late! When one earth are you going to arrive?
  4. Are these flowers for me? You are so generous. How one earth did you know it was my birthday?
  5. I can’t believe you have been made redundant. What one earth are you going to do?
  6. Who one earth would buy this house? It is overpriced and in the middle of nowhere.
  7. Tom the project is overdue. The deadline was over a month ago. When one earth are you going to hand it in?
  8. Where one earth is Hondarribia? I have never heard of it.