A direct question — ¿Vienes mañana? — becomes an embedded question when it is folded inside another sentence: me preguntó si venía mañana. Most embedded questions in Spanish take the indicative without hesitation, which is why the topic rarely appears in textbooks before B2. But there is a quiet, well-defined zone where the indicative is replaced or competed against by the subjunctive — and getting this zone right is one of the markers of advanced fluency.
This page sets out the system: when embedded questions take the indicative (the default), when they admit the subjunctive (a small set of contexts), and how Peninsular Spanish handles the borderline cases. The short version: preguntar almost always demands the indicative; saber and no saber allow indicative; querer saber and certain future-oriented constructions open a narrow but real subjunctive door.
What counts as an indirect question
An indirect question is a clause introduced by a question word (qué, quién, cuándo, dónde, cómo, por qué, cuánto) or by si (yes/no), embedded under a verb of asking, knowing, doubting, wondering, deciding, or telling. Crucially, the embedded clause keeps the interrogative meaning but loses the question marks and the verb-subject inversion.
¿Cuándo llega el tren? — Me preguntó cuándo llegaba el tren.
When does the train arrive? — He asked me when the train arrived.
¿Vendrás mañana? — Me preguntó si vendría mañana.
Will you come tomorrow? — He asked me if I would come tomorrow.
Note that the question words keep their accent when embedded: cuándo, dónde, qué, quién. This is the single most common spelling slip — see Common Mistakes.
The default: indicative
The overwhelming majority of indirect questions in Spanish take the indicative, including after preguntar, saber, no saber, contar, decir, explicar, averiguar, enterarse de, imaginarse, and the conversational adivinar.
Le pregunté qué hora era y me dijo que ya pasaban las once.
I asked him what time it was and he told me it was already past eleven.
Sé perfectamente quién ha cogido el último trozo de tarta.
I know perfectly well who took the last piece of cake.
No sé si Marta viene a la cena o no.
I don't know whether Marta is coming to dinner or not.
Me imagino por qué estás así, has tenido un día durísimo.
I can imagine why you're like this, you've had a really tough day.
Acabo de enterarme de cuándo es la próxima reunión, es el martes a las diez.
I've just found out when the next meeting is, it's Tuesday at ten.
The logic: an embedded question reports the content of a question, not a wish, doubt, or evaluation. The reported content lives in indicative reality — the speaker is repackaging a question, not introducing uncertainty about a state of affairs.
Preguntar — always indicative
Preguntar (to ask) demands the indicative in the embedded clause, in every tense and every context. This is the rule that learners need to internalise first.
Me preguntó si tenía hora.
He asked me if I had the time.
Le pregunté dónde vivía, pero no quiso decírmelo.
I asked him where he lived, but he wouldn't tell me.
Te quería preguntar cuánto cobras por una clase particular.
I wanted to ask you how much you charge for a private lesson.
Pregúntale cuándo vuelve, a ver si hay manera de coincidir.
Ask him when he's coming back, to see if there's a way to meet up.
There is no subjunctive option here. Preguntar si venga is ungrammatical in Spain Spanish. Even when the answer is unknown to the speaker, the embedded clause stays in the indicative.
Saber and no saber — indicative is standard
Saber (to know) and its negation no saber take the indicative in standard Peninsular Spanish.
No sé si vendrá Pablo a la fiesta.
I don't know whether Pablo will come to the party.
¿Sabes a qué hora abren la oficina los lunes?
Do you know what time the office opens on Mondays?
No sé qué hacer con esta lavadora, lleva tres días pitando.
I don't know what to do with this washing machine, it's been beeping for three days.
You may occasionally encounter no sé si venga in older texts or in dialectal Spanish, especially in some Latin American varieties. In modern Peninsular Spanish, it sounds non-standard. Stick to the indicative.
The narrow subjunctive zone
The subjunctive does appear in a small number of embedded-question contexts. They have one thing in common: the embedded clause is not just reporting a question, it is also expressing future open possibility or deliberation about an unrealised event.
Future deliberation with no saber + si
When no saber si is followed by an action the speaker is deliberating about doing — and which has not yet happened — the present subjunctive is possible alongside the future indicative.
No sé si vaya a la cena de mañana, estoy fatal.
I don't know if I should go to dinner tomorrow, I feel awful.
No sé si iré a la cena de mañana, estoy fatal.
I don't know if I'll go to dinner tomorrow, I feel awful.
No sé si llamarle ya o esperar a que me llame él.
I don't know whether to call him now or wait for him to call me.
The subjunctive version (no sé si vaya) leans into the deliberative reading — "I'm weighing it up, I haven't decided". The future indicative (no sé si iré) leans into a flat statement of uncertainty about a future event. Both are documented in the RAE grammar, but in Peninsular Spanish the deliberative no sé si vaya is markedly less frequent — it is associated more with American Spanish, especially Mexican. The everyday peninsular options are the future indicative (no sé si iré), the present indicative (no sé si voy), or the infinitive (no sé si ir).
The infinitive option (no sé si llamarle, no sé si ir) is by far the most common in colloquial Spain Spanish when the subject of both clauses is the same speaker — and it is the form to default to.
Querer saber — softened request, optional subjunctive
When querer saber functions as a polite indirect request — closer to I'd like to know — the embedded clause can take the subjunctive when it asks about a future event or a desired outcome.
Quería saber cuándo pueda pasar a recoger el paquete.
I'd like to know when I might pick up the package.
Quería saber cuándo puedo pasar a recoger el paquete.
I'd like to know when I can pick up the package.
The subjunctive pueda projects the action as a future possibility to be confirmed; the indicative puedo asks more concretely. Both are grammatical; the subjunctive softens the request. In Peninsular Spanish the indicative form (cuándo puedo, or the imperfect cuándo podía) is the everyday default in customer-service emails and polite phone enquiries; the subjunctive (cuándo pueda) is more characteristic of American Spanish and reads as slightly formal or marked in Spain.
Future possibility with cuando / donde / como in embedded questions
When an embedded question with cuando, donde, or como refers to a future event whose timing or location is genuinely unsettled, the subjunctive appears.
Aún no sabemos cuándo se vaya a celebrar la reunión.
We still don't know when the meeting is going to be held.
Aún no sabemos cuándo se va a celebrar la reunión.
We still don't know when the meeting is going to be held.
The subjunctive (cuándo se vaya a celebrar) projects the date as open. The indicative (cuándo se va a celebrar) treats it as a fact that is simply not yet known to the speaker. In Peninsular Spanish the indicative is overwhelmingly the everyday default; the subjunctive variant is recognisable but uncommon in Spain and more characteristic of American written Spanish. Recognise it; do not produce it.
Doubt verbs — dudar, poner en duda
Dudar and poner en duda take the subjunctive when they introduce an embedded si-question — but in practice the construction is rare; speakers usually rephrase with a que-clause.
Dudo si tenga sentido seguir insistiendo.
I doubt whether it makes any sense to keep insisting. (formal, slightly literary)
Dudo que tenga sentido seguir insistiendo.
I doubt that it makes any sense to keep insisting. (standard rephrasing)
Most speakers prefer the que-clause version. Treat the si-version as recognition-only.
Embedded si (yes/no) vs. embedded qué/cuándo/dónde questions
The mood rules are identical for si-questions and wh-questions: indicative is the default, subjunctive opens only in the narrow zones above. The difference is structural: si introduces a yes/no question, while qué, cuándo, dónde, quién, cómo, por qué, cuánto introduce information questions.
No sé si Marta vendrá.
I don't know whether Marta will come.
No sé cuándo vendrá Marta.
I don't know when Marta will come.
No sé por qué Marta no quiere venir.
I don't know why Marta doesn't want to come.
No sé cuánto va a costar al final el arreglo.
I don't know how much the repair is going to cost in the end.
All four take the indicative. Switching any one of them to the subjunctive without a triggering context would be ungrammatical.
Tense alignment in indirect questions
Indirect questions follow the standard sequence-of-tenses rules. A present-tense matrix verb permits free choice of subordinate tense; a past-tense matrix verb forces the subordinate tense to shift backward.
| Direct question | After present matrix | After past matrix |
|---|---|---|
| ¿Dónde vives? | Me pregunta dónde vivo. | Me preguntó dónde vivía. |
| ¿Has comido? | Me pregunta si he comido. | Me preguntó si había comido. |
| ¿Vendrás? | Me pregunta si vendré. | Me preguntó si vendría. |
| ¿Qué hiciste? | Me pregunta qué hice. | Me preguntó qué había hecho. |
Me preguntó si había estado alguna vez en Galicia y le dije que sí, dos veranos.
He asked me if I had ever been to Galicia and I said yes, two summers.
Quería saber qué pensábamos hacer en agosto, porque ellos van a Asturias.
She wanted to know what we were planning to do in August, because they're going to Asturias.
Word order inside the embedded question
Unlike English, Spanish does not always invert subject and verb in embedded questions. The neutral order is often question word + verb + subject, but question word + subject + verb is also possible, especially for contrastive emphasis.
No sé qué quiere mi madre que le compre para su cumpleaños.
I don't know what my mum wants me to buy her for her birthday.
No sé qué mi madre quiere — siempre dice 'cualquier cosa'.
I don't know what my mum wants — she always says 'anything'.
The second order with the subject before the verb is mildly contrastive (the speaker is implicitly contrasting my mum with someone else). The first is the neutral default.
How this differs from English
English allows much greater mood flexibility in embedded questions: I wonder if he be here / were here / is here / will be here are all readable. Spanish is much more constrained: the indicative is overwhelmingly the default, and the subjunctive is reserved for the narrow deliberation zone described above.
The second big mismatch: English uses whether and if almost interchangeably; Spanish uses only si for embedded yes/no questions. There is no equivalent of the whether / if distinction.
Third: English embedded questions sometimes show subject-verb inversion carrying over from the direct question (I wonder where is he) — this is non-standard in writing but common in speech. Spanish never inverts in embedded questions in the same way: no sé dónde está él is correct; no sé dónde está without an explicit subject is the everyday form.
Common Mistakes
❌ Me preguntó si tuviera tiempo para ayudarle.
Mood error — preguntar takes the indicative; the embedded clause should be tenía or tendría, not tuviera.
✅ Me preguntó si tenía tiempo para ayudarle.
He asked me if I had time to help him.
❌ No sé cuando vendrá la profesora.
Accent missing — embedded interrogative cuándo keeps the accent even when the question marks disappear.
✅ No sé cuándo vendrá la profesora.
I don't know when the teacher will come.
❌ No sabe que hora es.
Wrong relative — embedded interrogative qué (with accent), not the unaccented que; the missing accent flips the meaning.
✅ No sabe qué hora es.
He doesn't know what time it is.
❌ Me preguntó si que viniera mañana.
Incorrect doubled subordinator — si already introduces the embedded question; do not add que.
✅ Me preguntó si vendría mañana.
He asked me if I would come tomorrow.
❌ Quería saber donde se encuentre la oficina central.
Mood and accent error — embedded interrogative dónde keeps the accent, and the standard Peninsular mood is indicative encuentra, not subjunctive encuentre, for asking about a fixed location.
✅ Quería saber dónde se encuentra la oficina central.
I'd like to know where the head office is located.
Key Takeaways
- The default mood in indirect questions is the indicative. Preguntar, saber, no saber, and decir lock the embedded clause into the indicative in standard Peninsular Spanish.
- The subjunctive appears in a narrow zone: speaker deliberation (no sé si vaya), softened polite requests (quería saber cuándo pueda), and genuinely open future events (no sabemos cuándo se vaya a celebrar).
- Mood is determined by the matrix verb's syntactic class, not by the speaker's certainty about the answer. No saber expresses ignorance but still takes the indicative because it asks about a fact.
- Embedded question words keep their accents: qué, quién, cuándo, dónde, cómo, por qué, cuánto. Dropping the accent is the most common written error.
- Sequence-of-tenses applies: a past-tense matrix verb shifts the embedded clause backward (me preguntó si vendría, not si vendrá).
- Spanish does not distinguish if from whether: both map to si.
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