Connected with ESL (English as a second language) but I know the good folks here will have a view and I'd welcome that. If I ask the simple question “Did you go to London?” for me it is not the opposite or negative of “Didn’t you go to London?” The latter is asking confirmation of what I believe. The first is an open question. Does that sound reasonable as a statement, or doesn't it? ps. This came out of a double negative conversation with spaniards but that's a different can of worms.
You're right, they're not opposites. 'Didn't you go to London' means the same as 'You did go to London, didn't you?' Yes, asking for confirmation, exactly.
It's called a tag question. Did you go to London? (the listener needs to answer a simple question) Didn't you go to London? (tag question, the listener is confirming that the assumption is true.) They basically mean the same thing. Well, sort of. For basic purposes, they're both normal and fine. In the first the speaker is asking for an answer, and in the second the speaker is asking for confirmation of the statement itself. The difference is so subtle that for your purposes, it doesn't matter. Both get the same answer. Did you really do this? vs Do I know the truth? That's basically the difference.
Many thanks folks. I just wanted to check I wasn't going mad. I think it came about due to how the negative is expressed in Spanish but was being offered as an English rule. I'm not academically trained in this stuff, so I wanted to check there wasn't some other way of interpreting it. Cheers
You’re correct in general, but the first example would usually be asked to seek confirmation. If you were asking, generally, if a person had been to London, I would expect it to be worded “Have you ever been to London?” To me, “Did you go to London?” would be asked as a kind of follow-up to an earlier conversation in which the person states they may going to London. “(Oh, by the way) did you go to London (like you said you would?)”
