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Indirect Questions

The document discusses indirect questions in English. It explains that indirect questions are questions asked in a polite way, without using question inversion as in a direct question. Indirect questions are commonly started with phrases like "can you tell me" or "do you know" followed by the content of the question. Indirect questions are very common in English, especially when speaking to someone you don't know well, as they are considered more polite than direct questions.

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163 views2 pages

Indirect Questions

The document discusses indirect questions in English. It explains that indirect questions are questions asked in a polite way, without using question inversion as in a direct question. Indirect questions are commonly started with phrases like "can you tell me" or "do you know" followed by the content of the question. Indirect questions are very common in English, especially when speaking to someone you don't know well, as they are considered more polite than direct questions.

Uploaded by

uriel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Inderect

Questions

Indirect Notice that in the indirect question I put the verb ('is') after the subject
Questions: ('the bank'), in the same way as I do with a normal positive sentence ('the
bank is over there'), but in the direct question I put the verb 'is' before the
subject 'the bank'. This is called inversion, and it is used to make direct
questions in many verb tenses in English, but we don't use inversion in
indirect questions. This is very similar to the grammar of reported questions.
However, we use indirect questions in a different way from reported
questions. Indirect questions are a way of being polite. They are very, very
common in English, especially when you're talking to someone you don't know.

Use indirect questions when I'm asking for help in the


street, because they are very polite. Indirect questions
start with a phrase like 'could you tell me...' or 'do you
know.

Use Indrect Questions can be started in different ways:

- Can you tell me ...?

- Could you tell me ...?

- Do you know ...? Among other.


We have the direct question 'What time is it?' And to make
it indirect, we put for example:

Can you tell me + question word + subjet + verb? What time


is it?
Examples:

1-"Where's the station?"

"Can you tell me where the station is?

2-"Are you coming to the party?"

"Can you let me know if you're/are coming to the party?

3-"How does it work?"

"Can you explain (to me) how it works?"

4-"What's the the matter?"

Please tell me what the matter is?"

5-"Where are you from?"

"I'd like to know where you are from?"

6-"How long does it take to get there?"

"Do you know how long it takes to get there?"

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