Agreeing and Disagreeing- So do I, Neither do I, etc
To agree with a positive statement:
We use so + auxiliary/modal verb + pronoun:
"I like tea without sugar.'
'So do I.'
To agree with a negative statement:
We use nor/neither + auxiliary/modal verb + pronoun:
"I don't like tea with sugar.'
'Nor do I.' or 'Neither do I.'
To disagree with a positive statement:
We use pronoun + auxiliary/modal verb + not (-n't):
"I like tea without sugar.'
'I don't.'
To disagree with a negative statement:
We use pronoun + auxiliary/modal verb:
"I don't like tea with sugar.'
'I do.”
So do I / I don't either / Neither do I
One way that we can show similarities between ourselves and the people we
talk to is like this:
A: I love Indian food.
B: Yeah, me too. / Yeah. So do I. / I do, too.
If B doesn't like Indian food, the exchange might be like this:
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A: I love Indian food.
B: Do you? I don't.
I don't either / Neither do I
When we want to show that we feel the same way as somebody else we can use
patterns like these:
o
o
I like tennis - So do I.
I watch the news every day - Yeah, I do too.
So do I and I do too are used with positive verb forms. However, when we have
negative verb forms (i.e. forms which contain n't or never), we need to use a
different structure to share our feeling:
A: I don't like baseball.
B: No, me neither / Neither do I / I don't either.
Do you? I don't / Don't you? I do.
Be careful about this very important point:
So do I / I do to shows agreement with a positive verb form.
Neither do I / I don't either shows agreement with a negative verb form.
Therefore, if Person A likes pop music but Person B doesn't like pop music. We
do not express it like this:
A: I like pop music.
B: Neither do I.
Neither do I is used to show agreement with a negative verb statement:
A: I don't like chocolate.
B: Neither do I.
When B wants to show that his/her views are diffent from A's, it can be done
like this:
EXPRESSING DIFFERENCE WITH A POSITIVE VERB FORM:
A: I study hard every day.
B: Do you? I don't.
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EXPRESSING DIFFERENCE WITH A NEGATIVE VERB FORM:
A: I never watch television in the evenings.
B: Don't you? I do.
Making our responses more interesting
Of course, if we always respond to people's statements with So do I or Do
you? I don't etc., our responses will not be very interesting. To make them
more interesting, we can try to add an extra detail. Here are some examples:
A: I love Indian food.
B: Yeah, so do I, especially onion bhajis and rogan josh.
A: I don't like chocolate.
B: Neither do I. It usually makes me feel sick.
A: I really love baseball.
B: Do you? I think it's boring. I much prefer football.
A: I never read the newspapers.
B: Don't you? I always read the Guardian while I'm having breakfast
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