Indirect Questions

In English, it can sometimes seem confrontational or rude to ask people direct questions. To avoid this we often use indirect questions, which seem more polite. Have qa look at these examples of

“What do you want?”

“Could you tell me what you want?”

We often use phrases like “Could you tell me,” “Do you know…?” “I was wondering…?” or “Would you mind…?”

Forming Indirect Questions

Here are the basic steps to forming indirect questions.

1. Start with a polite phrase:
   • Use phrases like “Could you tell me,” “Do you know,” “I was wondering,” or “Would you mind.”
2. Use the question word (if applicable):
   • Words like “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” “who,” “how,” and “if” are used to introduce the actual question.
3. Formulate the question in statement form:
   • Unlike direct questions, the word order in indirect questions is that of a statement.
   • Direct question: “Where is the bank?”
   • Indirect question: “Could you tell me where the bank is?”
4. No auxiliary verbs or question marks:
   • In indirect questions, the auxiliary verb (do, does, did) is not used, and the sentence ends with a period, not a question mark.

Each of these steps is described in more detail with examples below.

Polite phrases to start indirect questions

To make an indirect question, we start with a “polite” phrase, such as “Could you tell me,” “Do you know…?” “I was wondering…?” or “Would you mind…?”

Here is a list with some common introductory phrases for indirect questions.

1. Would you be able to tell me
2. Can you let me know
3. I’d be interested to know
4. Have you any idea
5. I’m curious to know
6. Might you know
7. I need to find out
8. I was hoping you could tell me
9. Is there any possibility
10. I wonder if you could
11. Do you happen to know
12. I’d appreciate it if you could
13. May I ask
14. I’m interested in knowing
15. I’m looking for information on
16. Would you happen to know
17. Could you possibly tell me
18. I’d like to find out
19. Do you think you could
20. I’m wondering if you can

Question words

Next we use a question word like “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” “who,” “how,” and “if” to introduce the actual question.

Reorder the direct question as a statement

The part / clause AFTER the question word uses the normal statement order, not question word order.

This is logical. If I ask you

Where are you from?

This is clearly a question. But if I ask

Would you mind telling me where you are from?

The question part is whether you would mind telling me, not where you are from.

• Would you mind telling me where you are from?
• Do you know where I can find the post office?
• Could you tell me who he is?

TIP! Imagine that everything that comes after the question word is the start of a new sentence, that uses the normal word order that you would find in a positive sentence.

Look at this example from above

Do you know where I can find the post office?

The underlined part

I can find the post office?

Is just a positive sentence, in contrast with the inverted order of the subject and the verb in direct questions.

Compare the word order in the direct and indirect versions of this questions.

Where can I find the post office?

Do you know where I can find the post office.