Form

If we do not begin a question directly, but begin it with something like: Can you tell me...? Do you know...? I wonder if...? the word order is the same as in an affirmative statement. Direct question: What is he doing? Indirect question: Do you know what he is doing? Direct question: Where have they been? Indirect question: I wonder where they have been?

Do, does, did

If the direct question contains do, does or did, we omit it in the indirect question. Direct question: What do you want? Indirect question: Can you tell me what you want? Direct question: When did she leave? Indirect question: Do you know when she left?

Yes/no questions
In yes / no questions, we use if or whether (the word order is the same as in reported questions). Direct question: Have you seen my dog? Indirect question: Could you tell me if you have seen my dog? See also: Questions / Tag questions / Reported questions

Teaching Indirect questions

I teach this with the concept of permission. - with a direct question the person being questioned has two options: answer the question or ignore it (ignoring it would be impolite) - with indirect questions the person being questioned is presented with two parts : Can I ask (permission) The question They have the choice of saying "no you cannot ask" or answering the question - both are polite. I use very direct questions when expanding this idea in front of a group. How much do you earn ? Are you looking for a new job ? Who are you dating at the moment ? With these questions the student would rather not answer them in front of a group - so has to choose the "no you can't ask" variation. Works for me :-) " Adrian

I present this as 'polite commands' Rude: Tell me what time it is! Polite: I was wondering if you could tell me what time it is? Rude: Give me a pen! Polite: Could you give me a pen? Rude: Move! Polite: Would you be able to move, please? So lesson is: 1) be rude, 2) what can we say to be polite (Could you..., I was wondering if...?) 3) now put them together - but DO NOT change the word order of the rude command. Getting students to transform real questions into indirect questions is very confusing for them - and artificial since the basic underlying sentence is a command, not a question. As such, it does not change. It's best to teach this in isolation from indirect speech since syntactically they are actually completely different things. Ben I teach this with the concept of permission. - with a direct question the person being questioned has two options: answer the question or ignore it (ignoring it would be impolite) - with indirect questions the person being questioned is presented with two parts: Can I ask (permission) The question They have the choice of saying "no you cannot ask" or answering the question - both are polite. I use very direct questions when expanding this idea in front of a group. How much do you earn ? Are you looking for a new job ? Who are you dating at the moment ? With these questions the student would rather not answer them in front of a group - so has to choose the "no you can't ask" variation.