Reported speech: questions

Do you know how to report a question that somebody asked? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how we can tell someone what another person asked.

direct speech: 'Do you work from home?' he said.
indirect speech: He asked me if I worked from home.

direct speech: 'Who did you see?' she asked.
indirect speech: She asked me who I'd seen.

direct speech: 'Could you write that down for me?' she asked.
indirect speech: She asked me to write it down.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: Grammar B1-B2: Reported speech 2: 1

Read the explanation to learn more.

Grammar explanation

A reported question is when we tell someone what another person asked. To do this, we can use direct speech or indirect speech.

direct speech: 'Do you like working in sales?' he asked.
indirect speech: He asked me if I liked working in sales.

In indirect speech, we change the question structure (e.g. Do you like) to a statement structure (e.g. I like).

We also often make changes to the tenses and other words in the same way as for reported statements (e.g. have done → had done, today → that day). You can learn about these changes on the Reported speech 1 – statements page.

Yes/no questions

In yes/no questions, we use if or whether to report the question. If is more common.

'Are you going to the Helsinki conference?'

He asked me if I was going to the Helsinki conference.

'Have you finished the project yet?'

She asked us whether we'd finished the project yet.

Questions with a question word

In what, where, why, who, when or how questions, we use the question word to report the question.

'What time does the train leave?'

He asked me what time the train left.

'Where did he go?'

She asked where he went.

Reporting verbs

The most common reporting verb for questions is ask, but we can also use verbs like enquire, want to know or wonder.

'Did you bring your passports?'

She wanted to know if they'd brought their passports.

'When could you get this done by?'

He wondered when we could get it done by.

Offers, requests and suggestions

If the question is making an offer, request or suggestion, we can use a specific verb pattern instead, for example offer + infinitive, ask + infinitive or suggest + ing.

'Would you like me to help you?'

He offered to help me.

'Can you hold this for me, please?'

She asked me to hold it.

'Why don't we check with Joel?'

She suggested checking with Joel.

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: Grammar B1-B2: Reported speech 2: 2

Try another grammar lesson

Language level

B1 Intermediate

Hello everyone! I would like to check if those sentences are correct? Nabila wants to know what the time of next flight to Boston is. She says she is tired of dealing with unreliable suppliers. Thank you so much in advance!

Hello Natasa Tanasa,

The second sentence is fine. The first sentence needs an article before 'next':

Nabila wants to know what the time of the next flight to Boston is.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello! Could you help me to report such sentence "Shall we go to the cinema?" Is it OK to say He asked if we should go to the cinema? Or is should old here and it's better to say He asked if they would go to the cinema.

Hi katyunechka1,

I wouldn't use should here. That's because in the original sentence, when the speaker says Shall we ... , the speaker is inviting you to go to the cinema. But should doesn't have that 'inviting' meaning, i.e. we can't use should to make invitations. If you say He asked if we should go to the cinema?, it means he asked whether going to the cinema is a good thing, or the right thing to do (which is different from the meaning of the original sentence).

I suggest using a different reporting verb to show the meaning of inviting. For example:

He invited us to go to the cinema.
He suggested that we go to the cinema.
He suggested going to the cinema.

Does that make sense?

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Yes, it absolutely does. Thank you!

hello why does "where is the bathroom" become he asked where the bathroom *was* i.e. verb at end but "why are you late" becomes he asked why I *was* late

Hi rg.esl,

Good question! It's because these questions have different structures.

Where is the bathroom? question word + be + subject
Why are you late? question word + be + subject + complement

To make the reported question, the subject and 'be' reverse the order. The first question doesn't have a subject complement, but the second one does, so this is added to the end of the sentence.

Does that make sense?

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Greetings. How long was the training " She asked me What are the possible answers? should we always change the past simple into past perfect?

Hello Mohammed Khaled Mohammed 101,

You could say either of the following:

She asked me how long the training was.
She asked me how long the training had been.

1 can be used in different situations, but 2 is only correct when the training was already finished at the time she asked you the question.

For example, if today is Sunday 7 March, she asked you the question on Friday 5 and the training finished on Thursday 4, then sentence 2 would be correct. Sentence 1 could also be used, but it would be a little less specific, as it could mean the training was still going to continue later (e.g. on Monday 8 March).

Hope this helps.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello, I'd like to know. Why is the first part it mentioned "direct speech: 'Who did you see?' she asked. indirect speech: She asked me who I'd seen" It means I should change to Past simple for Past Perfect but in othe part I've read Direct Speech: 'Where did he go?' Indirect Speech: She asked where he went. Directo: Past simple and Reported : past simple, Is that okay? and I want to know if you could explain to me, thanks !!