Reported Questions: -냐고 하다 / -(느)냐고

When you relay a question someone else asked — "she asked whether I'd eaten," "he asked where I was going" — English does two invisible pieces of surgery on the original words. It back-shifts the tense ("are you going?" becomes "asked where I was going") and it reorders the clause (question order → statement order). Korean does neither. It takes the original question almost verbatim, clamps the frame -냐고 하다 around it, and leaves the tense and the word order exactly as they were spoken. Learning to stop doing the English surgery is the whole battle here.

The frame: -냐고 + a speech verb

A reported question is built from the plain question ending -(느)냐 plus the quotative particle 고, followed by a verb of speaking — most often 하다 (say), 묻다 (ask), or 물어보다 (ask). The result means "asked whether/what/when…".

The building block is the plain -냐 you met on the plain-style questions page — the blunt question ending. That's not a coincidence: reported questions always relay through the plain form, no matter how politely the original question was actually asked. You then re-politen the reporting verb (물어봤어요) to suit your current listener.

Modern Korean levels it to -냐고

Traditionally, the ending split by predicate, exactly as plain questions once did:

• Verbs took -느냐고 — 가느냐고, 먹느냐고
• Adjectives took -(으)냐고 — 좋으냐고, 예쁘냐고
• The copula took -이냐고 — 학생이냐고

But modern spoken Korean has leveled all of this to plain -냐고 for verbs and adjectives alike: 가냐고, 먹냐고, 좋냐고, 맛있냐고. The older -느냐고/-(으)냐고 survives in more formal, careful, and literary registers.

Two things Korean refuses to do

It does not back-shift the tense

English drags the reported verb into the past to agree with "asked": "Are you coming?" → "He asked whether I *was coming." Korean *freezes the original tense. Whatever tense the question was asked in, that's the tense you keep inside -냐고.

This cuts both ways and matters for meaning. 오냐고 (present) reports the question "Are you coming?"; 왔냐고 (past) reports "Did you come?". Because Korean doesn't back-shift, the tense you choose is only the tense of the original question — never adjusted to match the reporting verb.

It does not reorder the wh-word

Just as with embedded -는지 questions, the wh-word stays exactly in place. There is no fronting.

In 언제 집에 오냐고, the 언제 sits in the middle where a plain question would put it — you are not moving it anywhere. Korean simply quotes the question as-spoken and wraps it.

One of four quotation frames

-냐고 is the question member of a four-way quotation system. Each sentence type has its own frame, all built the same way (plain ending + 고 + speech verb):

Choosing the right frame is a matter of matching the original speech act: a question relays through -냐고, and only -냐고. The full quotation system lives under reported speech in Syntax; here we focus on the interrogative frame itself.

The contracted spoken forms

In fast, everyday speech, -냐고 하다 collapses. The 하다 shrinks and fuses onto -냐고, giving contractions you'll hear constantly:

• -냐고 해요 → -냬요 — 가냐고 해요 → 가냬요
• -냐고 했어요 → -냈어요 — 가냐고 했어요 → 가냈어요

A learner who only ever produces the full 뭐 먹을 거냐고 해요 will be understood, but will sound like they're reading aloud from a grammar drill. The contracted 냬요 / 냈어요 are the normal spoken shape, so recognizing them in the wild — in drama dialogue, casual chat, and messaging, where the full forms rarely surface — is essential for following real Korean.

Politeness lives on the outer verb

Because the inner -냐 is frozen in plain form regardless of how the original question was phrased, all the register work happens on the reporting verb at the very end. The same relayed question can be delivered casually or formally just by reshaping that final verb — 가냐고 했어 (casual), 가냐고 했어요 (polite), 가느냐고 하셨습니다 (formal). You match that ending to the person you're speaking to now, never to the person you're quoting.

Here the honorific 물어보셨어요 raises the speaker who did the asking (부장님, the boss), while the embedded 몇 시냐 stays plain — a clean illustration that the two layers are steered independently.

Common Mistakes

1. Using the statement frame -다고 for a question. A relayed question must take -냐고, not -다고.

2. Back-shifting the tense, English-style. Don't push the inner verb into the past just because the reporting verb is past.

3. Re-politening or fronting inside the quote. The inner question is plain -냐 and stays in original order; only the outer verb carries politeness.

4. Confusing -냐고 (reporting) with -는지 (embedding). Both handle questions, but -냐고 relays what someone asked, while -는지 tucks a question under know/wonder. Don't swap them.

Key Takeaways

• Report a question with -냐고 + 하다/묻다/물어보다 ("asked whether/what/when…").
• Modern speech levels the old -느냐고 (verb) / -(으)냐고 (adjective) split down to plain -냐고; the split forms survive in formal writing.
• Korean freezes the original tense (오냐고 vs 왔냐고 = "are you coming?" vs "did you come?") and keeps the wh-word in situ — no English-style back-shift or reordering.
• -냐고 is the question frame of a four-way system: statement -다고, question -냐고, command -(으)라고, proposal -자고.
• Don't confuse reporting -냐고 (relaying a question) with embedding -는지 (a question under know/wonder).