What are do you live in?

Imagine a person asking you about where you live. How do you respond? How do you give details or more information?

In today's Everyday Grammar, we will explore ways to talk about where you live. You will learn about questions, answers, and different situations where such discussions might be important.

Let's start with some useful terms and ideas.

Asking questions and giving answers

Imagine a person asks you the following question:

Where do you live?

Let's break the question into its individual parts. We have the question word “where.” Then we have the helping verb “do.” Finally, we have the subject and main verb “you live.”

The kind of answer you give will depend on the situation in which the question is asked. For example, if a friend at school asks that question, they might only want to know the neighborhood or general area where you live. So, for example, a person in New York might give the following answer:

I live in Queens.

Or

I live in Brooklyn.

A person in Cairo might say,

I live in Agouza.

Or

I live in Shubra.

Note that we used the following structure for all of these statements:

subject + live + in + the name of the neighborhood

Giving details

It is possible that the person might ask for more information or details. For example, imagine the following exchange with a friend at school or work:

Where do you live?

I live in Brooklyn.

Really? My brother lives there too. Where in Brooklyn?

There are a few nice ways to respond to this kind of question. Your response can involve the prepositions “by” or “near,” as in:

I live by Prospect Park.

Or

I live near Prospect Park

Or

I live near the intersection of Bedford Avenue and Lincoln Road.

These answers involve important locations – a famous park, an intersection. There are, of course, other ways to give details about where you live.

Specific information

So far, we have explored how you might talk about where you live in a friendly, everyday sort of situation. But what should you do if the request is specific? So for example, official documents or situations often require an exact address instead of a general description.

So, an official might ask you, “What is your name and address?”

In this case, you could provide your name and the address of where you live. For example, an American person might say:

My name is John.

My address is 1234 Maple Street, Pleasantville, Alaska, 51099

Note that the general way of giving an address in the United States is as follows:

number street, city, state, zip code

Practice

Let’s take some time to work with these ideas. Ask a friend about where they live. Pause the audio to consider your answer.

Here is the answer:

Where do you live?

Now imagine a friend asks you about where you live. Use the name of the neighborhood “Manhattan” in your answer.

Pause the audio to consider your answer.

Here is one possible answer:

I live in Manhattan.

Now imagine that someone asks the following:

Where in Manhattan do you live?

Use the noun “Penn Station” in your answer. Pause the audio to consider your answer.

Here are two possible answers:

I live near Penn Station.

I live by Penn Station.

Closing thoughts

In today’s report, we learned about some ways to talk about where you live.

You learned about the importance of question words such as “where.” You also learned about the importance of short words such as "in,” “by” and “near,” as well as how nouns play an important part in talking about locations.

The next time you talk about where you live, we hope that you are able to use some of what you have learned today.

I’m John Russell.

John Russell wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English.

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In the English language ‘Live’ means ‘to make a particular place our home.’  It is the place where we return to sleep, cook, and live.  We use ‘live’ to talk about our permanent home and ‘stay’ to talk about temporary accommodation.  We live in a house, apartment, or flat, on a street, in a city, in a state or province, and in a country.  This question can be used to ask about any (or all) of these places.

Sometimes people have problems answering this question, no because they don’t know what it means, but because they have an English communication barrier and they have problems speaking English even if they know grammar. If you have the same problem you can check our free seminar.

It means “where is your home located?”

“Where do you live?” asks about the location of your permanent home.  The answer depends on the context of the question.  The question can refer to your country, province, city, suburb, or street address.  If we want to ask about someone’s temporary accommodation while on holiday, we would ask “where are you staying?”

Grammatically, the best way to answer this question is with the present simple tense.  We use the present simple tense to ask about permanent and unchanging situations.  It means that this is true now and for the foreseeable future.

Compare:

“I live in America.”

“I’m living in America.”

The present simple tense implies that I am not planning on leaving America any time in the present or near future.  This situation might change in the future, but I have no plans to change this situation at the time of speaking.

If we use the present continuous tense, then it implies that the situation is temporary.  “I’m living in America (but I’m expecting this situation to change in the future.)

It’s important to remember the prepositions of place when we answer the question “where do you live?”

IN: a country/city/province/state/suburb

“I live in America.”

ON: street

“I live on Market Street.”

AT: street address

“I live at number 5 Market Street.”

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Adding a preposition to the end of this question is unnecessary and grammatically incorrect.

‘Where’ is an adverb that means ‘to, at, or in a place.’  Therefore, ‘in’ is already in the question structure.  We also cannot limit the answer to ‘in.’  We can live at (an address) or on (a street) as well.

We can shift the focus from the present to the past to find out where someone lived previously. We are asking about a past completed action that is not true in the present when we ask “where did you live?”.

“Where did you live?” is the past tense of “where do you live?”  To create the past tense structure, we change the form of the auxiliary verb (do) and keep the main verb in the infinitive form.

This is grammatically incorrect.  We do not form past simple questions by adding a present tense auxiliary verb while keeping the main verb in the past tense form.

“Where did you live?” is correct.  When we create questions using the past tense, we only change the form of the auxiliary verb.  The auxiliary verb takes the role of indicating that this action happened in the past and is a past completed action.

The same rule applies for past tense negative forms:

For example:

“Where did you live?”

“I lived in America.”

“I didn’t live in America.”

The auxiliary verb changes to create the tense and the main verb changes to the infinitive form.

The structure of a ‘where’ question in the simple past tense is:

‘Where + did + subject + infinitive’

We do not ask “where are you live in?”  This sentence structure is not grammatically correct.

The answer is:

“I live in…”

If the answer does not have the main verb ‘be’ or an auxiliary verb, then we must use the auxiliary verb ‘do/does/did’ to create the question form.

We cannot give the answer: “I am live in…” so adding ‘to be’ to the question form is not grammatically correct.

We also cannot add ‘in’ to a question with ‘where’ because ‘where’ already means ‘in, at, or to a place.’

This question implies that the person we are speaking to moves around a lot.  We want to know where the person lives now.  ‘Currently’ means ‘at the present time.’ The question means “where are you living permanently in the present time?” and we ask it when we think someone may not be living in the same place for a very long time.

We can also use the present continuous to ask this question: “Where are you living?”

It’s grammatically correct to answer ”where do you live currently?” with a present simple or a present continuous answer:

“I currently live in New York.”

“I’m currently living in New York.”

These are both grammatically correct.

The present simple tense is used to talk about habits that are true in the present time:

“I live in New York.”

“I work in an office.”

The present continuous tense can also be used to talk about ongoing actions around the present:

“I’m living in New York.”

“I’m working in an office.”

So what’s the difference?

The present simple tense is commonly used for actions that are set and unchanging.  They are always true, not only in the present time.  The present continuous has a temporary connotation.  This means that the action is true now, but it may end soon or change soon.

We can use the present simple for things that are always true around the present time and the present continuous for things that are temporarily true around the present time.

“Where you live?” is not a complete and grammatically correct question.  We need the auxiliary verb ‘do/does/did’ to complete the question form.

Present simple:

(Where + do/does + subject + infinitive)

“Where do you live?”

“Where does he live?”

Past simple: