How to ask indirect questions in English ?? - Learn English with Harry

How to ask indirect questions in English ?? - Learn English with Harry Do you know how to ask indirect questions in English?  Firstly, we need to learn what an indirect question is. Then well learn what is the difference between direct and indirect questions. Lastly, well learn why it is better to ask indirect questions in English.   Direct and Indirect Questions in English Don't keep this to yourself, share it with the world! Thanks for joining me  again.Today,  were going to look again at some grammar.  Were going to look at how to ask indirect questions in English.  As you probably already know, there are two types of questions  in English.Direct and indirect.A direct question is usually:What is your name?How did you get here?Who are you?So very direct and often can sound a little bit rude.  We don’t want to sound rude, do we? And we also want to give someone a good feeling. So what do we do then? It’s really quite simple. All we need to do is to  change those direct questions into indirect questions.We just add some words or phrases at the beginning. This  takes the stress away from the who, what, where, when and turns them into indirect questions.So you sound more polite and  as a result  people are more likely to answer your question.So, particularly if youre a foreigner to English shores and you want to find some place, hotel, bank, airport, whatever it is, try and make your questions indirect.Youre more likely to get a response  and  more likely to get a positive response. Direct and Indirect Questions in English So let me give you these examples.Direct question:  Where is the post office?So if you stopped somebody in the street and asked them  a direct question like this, they might look at you, they probably would help you, but its not so polite.Let’s change it into an indirect question.Could you tell me where the post office is?Much, much more polite, much more likely to get you a positive response.And be very careful here when you see the direct question:Where is the post office?  Note the word order here, where the word is, okay?When we use the indirect question is goes to the very end of the sentence.Could you tell me where the post office is?So thats a really critical part of these indirect questions.That is a really important, because if you say it in another way, then itll  sound a  little bit strange and people will know that youre not a native speaker. Second example:Has John been invited to the party?   direct questionDo you know if John has been invited to the party? indirect questionAs I said, indirect question is more likely to get you a nice response. And again, here, look at where the verb is.And then the third example:How does this work? direct questionSo youre looking at some piece of machinery or mobile phone or some bit of technology and you just ask somebody  â€™how does this work?’    Its grammatically correct  but it sounds very rude.Let’s now turn that into an indirect question:Could you please explain how this works?Could you please explain how this works?Very indirect, very polite, and very definitely likely to get you the answer that you want.When we want to ask questions then  we try and avoid direct questions where possible. They  can come across as a little bit impolite even though you may not intend it that way. Thats often how they sound.Just by adding some nice phrases:Would you mind  â€¦  Could you ple ase  â€¦  Could I ask you  â€¦Is it possible  â€¦Do you know  â€¦you can change the sentence immediately into an indirect question.Now you know how to ask indirect questions in English.Enjoy your English!