Asking yes/no question

Question

In spanish grammar section, asking yes no questions is explained like this: no change neccesery, just putting question marks at the begin and the end of the sentence. however, I have seen another way to do this that replacing the verb with the subject. Is this such a formal way or what?

Answer 1

¿Esa es una silla? can be the question form of "esa es una silla". As you say, there is no change except the quetion mark. In speaking, the question marks tell the speaker to use rising inflection at the end of the sentence.

Also, you can re-arrange the sentence to "¿Es esa una silla?" This makes it a definite question, not just an inflected statement.

Either method is valid, and you see both in writing and in speakng.