Examples of Negative Sentences in English

Negative sentences in English

The English language admits the possibility of expressing ideas by affirming something or denying the opposite. For this he uses grammatical constructions denoting negation, and quite simply a sentence that a priori is declarative and that communicates something in a positive way can be modified in such a way that it indicates the same or almost the same in a negative way.

Sentences with verbal negation typically require auxiliary verbs to do / to be / to have, and are constructed in a similar way to interrogatives, but mentioning the person pronoun first and then the auxiliary, which will have the ending “n´t” (aren’t, isn’t, don´t, doesn´t, didn´t), all these contracted forms of the negative "Not". In the future there is a major change: “will” becomes “will not” or “won´t”.

When it comes to negative sentences due to negative non-verbal structures, these are typically appear in the subject with negative pronouns, although they can also affect the verb in the form of adverbs or direct objects.

Pronouns like 'nobody', 'no one' or 'nothing' make an affirmative sentence turn negative: ‘Nobody has seen him’ means ‘nobody has seen him’. In the same way, a positive sentence like ‘I have seen him’ (I have seen him) turns negative when it is transformed into ‘I have never seen him’ (I have never seen him).

Finally, saying 'they know' means 'they know', but adding 'they know' to it nothing ' it means 'they don't know anything', transforming it also into negative. It is interesting to note that double negative is not used in English, which is used in certain cases in Spanish (for example: No one came to the conference).

Examples of negative sentences in English

1. I haven’t seen him since 2004
2. She wasn’t here when I woke up
3. Nobody she knows where she was born
4. The weather isn’t hot
5. They are not four brothers
6. You weren’t at the hospital that night
7. We no like this kind of people
8. You haven’t got a car
9. They weren’t good on test
10. I had not a house before
11. I have doesn’t speak English
12. The concert won’t start until the people are quiet
13. You must not tell lies
14. I have never told such a thing
15. That´s not funny
16. Nothing is going to happen
17. I have didn’t go to the theater with us
18. We were not sleeping when she came
19. You shouldn't drink beer if you are going to drive
20. They aren’t going to pay the tickets today

Andrea is a language teacher, and in her instagram account She offers private lessons by video call so you can learn to speak English.