Reporting a question in Spanish follows the same general rules as reporting a statement, but with two extra twists. First, the conjunction que is replaced by si (for yes/no questions) or by the original question word (for information questions). Second, the sentence loses its question marks and its inverted word order: an indirect question is grammatically a statement, not a question.
Yes/No Questions with si
When the original question can be answered with sí or no, use the reporting verb preguntar plus the conjunction si ("if" or "whether"). Verb tenses still follow the normal tense shifts.
«¿Vienes a la fiesta?» → Preguntó si venía a la fiesta.
'Are you coming to the party?' → She asked if I was coming to the party.
«¿Tienen tiempo?» → Me preguntó si teníamos tiempo.
'Do you have time?' → He asked me if we had time.
«¿Ya comiste?» → Quiso saber si ya había comido.
'Have you eaten yet?' → She wanted to know if I had already eaten.
Notice that si here has nothing to do with the conditional si ("if" in a hypothetical sense). Context makes the difference clear.
Information Questions with Question Words
When the original question starts with a question word like qué, dónde, cómo, cuándo, por qué, quién, or cuánto, that same word introduces the indirect question. The accent mark is preserved, because these words remain interrogative even in an embedded clause.
| Question word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| qué | what |
| dónde | where |
| cómo | how |
| cuándo | when |
| por qué | why |
| quién | who |
| cuánto | how much / how many |
«¿Dónde vives?» → Me preguntó dónde vivía.
'Where do you live?' → He asked me where I lived.
«¿Qué quieres comer?» → Quiso saber qué quería comer.
'What do you want to eat?' → She wanted to know what I wanted to eat.
«¿Cuándo llegaron?» → Preguntó cuándo habían llegado.
'When did you arrive?' → He asked when they had arrived.
«¿Por qué no vino?» → No entendía por qué no había venido.
'Why didn't he come?' → She didn't understand why he hadn't come.
Word Order in Indirect Questions
Direct questions in Spanish often use inverted word order: ¿Dónde vive Juan? In indirect speech, the subject usually comes after the verb as well, but the sentence is no longer a question, so there are no question marks and no rising intonation.
«¿Cuánto cuesta el boleto?» → Preguntó cuánto costaba el boleto.
'How much does the ticket cost?' → He asked how much the ticket cost.
Both preguntó cuánto costaba el boleto and preguntó cuánto el boleto costaba are grammatical, but the first sounds more natural and is far more common.
Other Verbs That Introduce Indirect Questions
Preguntar is the default, but Spanish has many other verbs that can introduce an indirect question, each with its own shade of meaning.
- querer saber — to want to know
- no saber — not to know
- averiguar — to find out
- explicar — to explain (when the explanation answers a question)
No sabía cómo se llamaba.
I didn't know what his name was.
Queremos averiguar dónde está la oficina.
We want to find out where the office is.
Multiple Questions Together
You can string several indirect questions together with commas or with y. Each one keeps its question word.
Quiso saber quién era yo, de dónde venía y por qué estaba ahí.
She wanted to know who I was, where I came from, and why I was there.
Keep the Tenses Aligned
Like any reported sentence, an indirect question obeys the normal tense shifts after a past reporting verb. A present becomes an imperfect, a preterite becomes a pluperfect, and so on.
«¿Has visto a Luis?» → Me preguntó si había visto a Luis.
'Have you seen Luis?' → She asked me if I had seen Luis.
Once the reporting verb, the connector (si or a question word), and the correct tense are in place, indirect questions flow just as naturally as reported statements.
Related Topics
- Reported Speech OverviewB1 — How Spanish reports what someone else said using direct and indirect speech.
- Tense ShiftsB2 — How verb tenses move backward when reporting speech from a past moment in Spanish.
- Reporting CommandsB2 — How direct commands become subordinate clauses with the subjunctive in indirect speech.