Did you get married before

Question

One of my colleague is single. I want to know does he have any "marriage" experience. Should I say:

Did you get married before?

or

Have you been married before?

Answer 1

The question needs more clarity. Also, it's one of my colleagues. We use plural after one of X.

To me, it seems that you know that he's single but asking him the experience of marriage and not the status. Especially your words any marriage experience! This brings up the probability of asking whether the answerer has married at least once in his lifetime. :)

Are you married - you are asking the status and probable answer (in that single case), could be No, I'm not.

I also agree with Lascivious Grace that No, I'm divorced works but then you want to ask the experience of being ever married in past.

I'd ask...

Have you ever been married?

And the answer could be, No, not yet! Or Yes, once but I'm divorced.

This is just my opinion though. Natives might have something in their bags. :)

Answer 2

Your first sentence isn't a common construction. The only way I'd say "Did you X before?" is when the order of events is part of the question:

"I went for a run"

"Did you stretch before [that]?" (or more likely "Did you stretch beforehand?" or "Did you stretch first?")

So choosing between your two questions I choose the second, but that's because the first is pretty much wrong.

You should be choosing between "Did you ever get married?" and "Have you ever been married?". The former gives the impression that you're asking about the process of getting married (i.e. weddings) and the latter gives the impression that you're asking about married life. So although the answer to either question is the same, you might want to signal which one you're interested in, to help move the conversation along.

Answer 3

The correct thing to ask here would be Have you ever been married? Judging from the question, you seem to know for sure that the person is currently single, hence this sentence.

Answer 4

"To get married" is the action of going through the actual wedding ceremony. If you ask, "Did you get married before?" it sounds to me like an incomplete sentence, because you are asking if the wedding took place before an event, such as, "Did you get married before the holiday?"

However "to be married" is the state of being married, not the action of the wedding, so I think what you want to ask is "Have you been married before", as you proposed, or "Have you ever been married", as others have suggested.

Answer 5

I sometimes find it easier to sort this out by checking in the present tense. Directly converting your two options, you get

Do you get married?

and

Are you married?

#2 clearly makes more sense here, so "have you been married before" should work better as well. "Have you ever been married" works well too, though the two behave slightly differently:

"ever" | "before" |
-------+----------+------------------------------------------------
 TRUE  |  FALSE   | Currently married, never been married before
 TRUE  |  TRUE    | Married to someone in the past, and currently married to another
 TRUE  |  TRUE    | Married to someone in the past, not currently married
 FALSE |  FALSE   | Never been married

You'll note that someone who is currently married for their first time would respond that they've never been married before, while if you ask if they've EVER been married, they'd probably say yes (because "ever" includes the present tense... though depending on context someone might assume you're asking about their past -- for example, if you know they're currently married they could assume you're not counting their current marriage).