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U N I T 20

Reported Questions
(questions in indirect speech)

Direct question: He said, 'Peter, where are you going?'

Indirect question: He asked Peter where he was going.
Cuando convertimos las preguntas directas en preguntas indirectas, son
necesarios algunos cambios:
Los tiempos, los pronombres y adjetivos posesivos.y los adverbios de tiempo
y lugar cambian con respecto a las oraciones directas.
La forma interrogativa cambia a forma afirmativa. El signo de interrogacion
(?) se omite en las preguntas indirectas:
She said, 'Where does he live?' = She asked where he lived.

Cuando pedimos informacion, a veces decimos Do you know ....? Could you tell
me ...?. Con este tipo de preguntas el orden de las palabras es diferente:
Compara:
What has Jim done? Do you know what Jim has done?
Si el verbo de introduction es say se debe cambiar a uno de estos verbos:
ask, inquire, wonder, want to know.
She said, 'Where is the station?'= She asked where the station was.
Ask puede ir seguido de un complemento indirecto.
He asked, 'What have you got in your mouth?'
He asked (me) what I had in my mouth.

Recuerda
Los cambios del orden de las palabras en las preguntas indirectas:
direct: The teacher said to us, 'What are you doing?'
reported: The teacher asked us what we were doing,
direct: Jim said, 'What do you want?'
reported: Jim wanted to know what I wanted.

En las preguntas indirectas el verbo generalmente se cambia al pasado

(were, went)
Jim fue a pasar su examen de conducir, y he aqui algunas de las preguntas
que le hicieron:
How old are you? Can you drive? How long have you been learning?
Have you got a car? Do you smoke in the car?
Luego comento con un amigo lo que le preguntaron:
He asked me if I could drive. He asked me how old I was.
He wanted to know how long I had been learning.
He enquired if I had a car. He wanted to know if I smoked in the car.