Short answers

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Sometimes, the answer to a question is just a simple yes or no: ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yes.’
But we can be a bit more emphatic by using a short answer, repeating the verb at the beginning of the question:

‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yes, I am.’ 
                             
When we do this, we can even omit the word yes:

‘Are you ready?’ ‘I am!’

These are called short answers because we omit a part of the sentence we don’t want to repeat. The complete – or long – answer would be Yes, I am ready.

This kind of answer is very common in English:

‘Can we win?’ ‘Yes, we can.’
 
‘Do you like music?’ ‘Yes, I do.’

When the answer is negative, we only have to add not at the end:

‘Did you go to the concert?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Have you been using my computer?’ ‘No, I haven’t.’

Auxiliary verbs are also used like this in other situations, to avoid repeating the whole sentence:

‘It’s a bit cold in here.’ ‘Yes, it is (a bit cold in here).’

‘Don’t forget to switch off the lights.’ ‘I won’t (forget to switch off the lights).’  
 

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