Question

Transform the sentence with ‘as soon as’ to sentence with ‘no sooner than’.
As soon as we came out of the hotel, it started raining.
A) No sooner do we come out of the hotel than it started raining.
B) No sooner had we come out of the hotel than it started raining.
C) No sooner did we come out of the hotel than it started raining.
D) No sooner did we come out of the hotel than it started raining.

Answer 1

Hint: ‘No sooner than’ refers to an action that takes place immediately after another action.

Complete Answer: As given in the hint, ‘no sooner than’ is used to indicate the second action that takes place right after the first action.
‘No sooner than’ is generally used with the past perfect tense of a verb.
Example- No sooner than + had + 3rd form of the verb
No sooner had they started walking than it started raining. Here, we can understand that the first action of ‘walking’ was immediately followed by the action of ‘raining’.
In the given question: We can conclude that X and Y began the first action of coming out of the hotel, followed by the second action of raining.

Now, let’s examine the given options-
1) No sooner do we come out of the hotel than it started raining- The given sentence is incorrect as the verb ‘do’ is given in present tense form. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
2) No sooner had we came out of the hotel than it started raining- The given sentence is grammatically inappropriate. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
3) No sooner did we come out of the hotel than it started raining- The given sentence is accurate as the auxiliary verb ‘did’ is followed by the subject ‘we’. Hence, it is the correct option.
4) No sooner did we come out of the hotel then it started raining- The given sentence is grammatically inappropriate. Hence, it is an incorrect option.

The correct answer is Option ‘c’.

Note: ‘No sooner than’ should always be positioned at the beginning of a sentence followed by an auxiliary verb and subject.