Reporting Questions

Reporting a question in Portuguese is a three-part job: pick the right connector (se for yes/no, a wh-word for content questions), restore normal word order, and apply the tense shift that reported speech requires. The structural changes are bigger than for statements, because questions have their own syntax that dissolves when embedded.

For the general principles of reported speech, start with the overview page; for the mechanics of tense shifts, see the dedicated page. This page focuses specifically on what happens when a question gets reported.

Two types of questions, two connectors

Portuguese questions fall into two syntactic families, and each is reported differently.

• Yes/no questions (perguntas totais) expect "sim" or "não" as the answer: "Vens?", "Já comeste?", "Está a chover?". In reported speech, they're introduced by se ("if/whether").
• Wh-questions (perguntas parciais) expect specific information: "Onde moras?", "Que horas são?", "Porque é que não vens?". The wh-word (onde, quando, quanto, como, porque, quem, o que, qual) stays and does the connecting work.

Notice the structural contrast: se introduces the first, onde introduces the second. Neither needs a que — se and wh-words already connect the clause.

Yes/no questions: se + SVO

The basic pattern

The original yes/no question may have any word order Portuguese allows (often VSO, with the verb fronted), but the reported version always reverts to standard SVO.

Notice the second example: the subject-verb order that inverted in the question (está o João) reverts to o João estava — subject before verb, like any statement.

Tense shifts apply as normal

When the reporting verb is past, the backshift rules from the tense shifts page apply:

Se is not the same as the conditional se

Learners often worry that they're confusing the reported-speech se ("if/whether") with the conditional se ("if"). They're written identically but behave completely differently:

• Conditional se (conditional clauses): "Se chover, ficamos em casa." — introduces a hypothesis. Can be followed by the future subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, or pluperfect subjunctive.
• Reported se (yes/no question complementizer): "Perguntei se ela queria vir." — introduces an embedded question. Takes normal indicative tenses (with the usual backshift).

The two ses look identical but their syntactic function is different. Don't try to put the future subjunctive after a reported se — use the regular indicative, adjusted for backshift.

Wh-questions: the wh-word stays

Simple wh-questions

Whatever wh-word the original question used — onde, quando, como, quanto, porque, quem, o que, qual — stays in the reported version. Word order reverts to SVO.

The porque / porquê distinction

Portuguese has two forms of "why" — they look similar but behave differently:

• Porque (written as one word) is used to ask a question or to answer one (in reverse order — though "porque" as a conjunction starts the answer). In modern European Portuguese, porque and por que both appear as interrogatives, with porque being the more common form in everyday use.
• Porquê (with a circumflex) is used as a standalone question ("Why?") or at the end of a question ("Fizeste isso porquê?").

In reported speech, the standalone porquê becomes porque (the conjunction form):

The common spoken pattern is porque é que — literally "why is it that" — and this carries over naturally into reported speech.

O que vs que vs o qual

"What" has multiple forms:

• O que — the most common form, especially in speech: "O que queres?" → "Perguntou o que eu queria."
• Que — shorter, often with more formal or literary feel: "Que dizes?" → "Queria saber que eu dizia."
• Qual — "which" when there's a set of options: "Qual preferes?" → "Perguntou qual eu preferia."

Quem with and without prepositions

Quem ("who/whom") stays in reported speech. When it's the object of a preposition, the preposition comes along:

Portuguese places the preposition before the wh-word in both direct and reported speech (com quem, not quem... com), unlike colloquial English which often strands the preposition at the end of the clause ("who are you going with?").

Word order: from inversion to SVO

Portuguese questions often use inversion — especially in careful or literary speech — but reported versions always revert to declarative SVO order. This mirrors what happens in English ("Where are you going?" → "She asked where I was going", not "where was I going").

In colloquial Portuguese, direct yes/no questions often don't invert at all — they just use question intonation: "A Ana está em casa?" The reported version then looks like a simple insertion of se: "Perguntei se a Ana estava em casa."

Double embedding: a question inside a question

Sometimes what you're reporting is itself a question embedded inside another question ("He asked whether she knew where they lived"). Each layer takes its own connector and word order:

Parse the structure:

• O Pedro perguntou-me — main reporting verb.
• se eu sabia — first embedded clause, a yes/no question introduced by se.
• onde a Ana estava — second embedded clause, a wh-question inside the first, with onde.

The layering is recursive — you can embed questions inside questions as deep as the sentence tolerates. Each level follows its own rules: se for yes/no, wh-word for content, SVO order throughout, and tense backshift cascaded down.

Contrast with English: what Portuguese doesn't have

No do/does/did deletion

English has an "auxiliary do" system that disappears when a question is embedded: "Do you know?" → "I wondered if you knew" (no do). Portuguese never had do in the first place, so there's nothing to delete. The reported version simply revises the verb to SVO:

English speakers sometimes over-complicate Portuguese reporting because they're mentally tracking an auxiliary that doesn't exist.

Word-order reversion is simpler

Because Portuguese doesn't require subject-auxiliary inversion in questions (question intonation alone often suffices in speech), the "word order change" from direct to indirect is often invisible. If the direct question was already SVO with only intonation signaling it, the reported version looks almost identical:

No "whether" / "if" distinction

English distinguishes if and whether in some contexts (more formal writing prefers whether for indirect questions, especially with or not). Portuguese just uses se. There's no register distinction.

Reporting verbs for questions

Not just perguntar. There are several verbs that can introduce an embedded question:

A subtle point: perguntar takes the indicative

Perguntar — even though it expresses questioning and doubt — takes the indicative (with normal backshift), not the subjunctive. This surprises learners coming from Spanish, where preguntar also takes the indicative but where students have often been over-generalizing "verbs of doubt = subjunctive".

The verb duvidar, by contrast, does trigger the subjunctive, because it expresses active doubt rather than a request for information:

Common Mistakes

Three errors rolled into one: the question mark doesn't belong (this is no longer a direct question); tu should become eu from the reporter's perspective; estás should backshift to estava.

Embedded questions are statements at the sentence level — they take a period, not a question mark. The whole sentence ends in a period because the main clause (perguntou...) is declarative.

Queria is imperfect (a past-frame verb), so the embedded verb must also backshift.

Que alone rarely starts an embedded question about "what". Use o que — it's the standard form for both direct and reported questions.

If the original was "who are you going with?" and you are the one being asked, tu becomes eu and vais becomes ia.

Key Takeaways

1. Yes/no questions → se
   • SVO: "Perguntou se eu queria."
2. Wh-questions keep their wh-word → wh-word + SVO: "Perguntou onde eu estava."
3. No question mark on embedded questions; the sentence as a whole is declarative.
4. Word order reverts to SVO. Any inversion from the direct question disappears.
5. Tense shifts apply as with regular reported speech: present → imperfect, preterite → pluperfect, future → conditional, etc.
6. Se for reported questions is a different se from conditional se — it takes the indicative, not the future subjunctive.
7. Perguntar takes the indicative, not the subjunctive — despite expressing "uncertainty". It's a request for information, not an expression of doubt.

For commands and requests (which follow different rules entirely), see the reporting commands page.