When you report someone else's question — He asked me if I was hungry, She wanted to know where I'd parked — Spanish has two clear rules and one small orthographic trap. Yes/no questions take si. Wh-questions keep their wh-word, and the written accent on that wh-word stays. Beyond that, embedded questions follow declarative shape: no inverted question marks, and the inversions that direct speech can carry are usually flattened out. This page walks through the mechanics, the orthography, the reporting verbs that license indirect questions, and the colloquial peninsular que si double-introducer that you'll hear on the street.
The two patterns at a glance
There are exactly two shapes for an indirect question in Spanish, and they correspond to the two kinds of question the speaker can ask in the first place.
| Direct question | Indirect question | Introducer |
|---|---|---|
| ¿Tienes hambre? | Me preguntó si tenía hambre. | si |
| ¿Vienes mañana? | Me preguntó si venía al día siguiente. | si |
| ¿Qué quieres? | Me preguntó qué quería. | qué (with accent) |
| ¿Dónde has aparcado? | Me preguntó dónde había aparcado. | dónde (with accent) |
| ¿Cuándo llegáis? | Me preguntó cuándo llegábamos. | cuándo (with accent) |
The split is mechanical: if the original question expects yes or no, you use si. If it asks for a piece of information (a what, a who, a where, a when, a why, a how, a how-much), you re-use the same wh-word that introduced the direct question.
Yes/no questions: si + clause
A yes/no question has no wh-word and no information gap — it just asks the listener to confirm or deny something. Spanish embeds it under si.
Me preguntó si quería un café con leche.
She asked me if I wanted a café con leche.
Mi madre quiere saber si vamos a casa este fin de semana.
My mum wants to know whether we're coming home this weekend.
No me dijo si había aprobado el examen o no.
He didn't tell me whether he'd passed the exam or not.
The si here is the reported-speech si, identical in form to the conditional si (si tienes hambre, te preparo algo = "if you're hungry, I'll make you something") but living in a completely different construction. The reported-speech si introduces a noun clause that functions as the direct object of a verb of asking, knowing, or doubting. The conditional si introduces an adverbial clause expressing a condition on a main verb. They look identical and they behave nothing alike.
You can make this explicit when you want to emphasise the open alternative:
Pregúntale si viene o no, que tengo que hacer la compra.
Ask him whether or not he's coming — I need to do the shopping.
Wh-questions: keep the wh-word, keep the accent
A wh-question is a question that asks for a specific piece of information. The wh-word is what marks it, and that wh-word survives intact when the question is embedded.
| Direct wh-word | Indirect wh-word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ¿qué? | qué | what |
| ¿quién? / ¿quiénes? | quién / quiénes | who |
| ¿dónde? | dónde | where |
| ¿cuándo? | cuándo | when |
| ¿cómo? | cómo | how |
| ¿cuál? / ¿cuáles? | cuál / cuáles | which |
| ¿cuánto? / ¿cuánta? / ¿cuántos? / ¿cuántas? | cuánto/-a/-os/-as | how much / how many |
| ¿por qué? | por qué | why |
| ¿para qué? | para qué | what for |
The accent rule — the critical orthographic point
This is the single most important thing on this page. The written accent on the wh-word stays in indirect questions. Qué, dónde, cuándo, cómo, quién, cuál, cuánto, por qué — every one of them keeps its tilde when it embeds.
Me preguntó qué quería para cenar.
She asked me what I wanted for dinner.
No sé dónde he dejado las gafas.
I don't know where I've left my glasses.
Quería saber cuándo llegaba el AVE desde Sevilla.
She wanted to know when the AVE from Seville was arriving.
No me explicó cómo había conseguido el piso tan barato.
He didn't explain how he'd got the flat so cheap.
The reason for the accent goes to a deeper principle of Spanish orthography. The accent marks the interrogative or exclamatory function of these words, not the question marks. Que (unaccented) is a relative pronoun or conjunction ("that"). Qué (accented) is an interrogative ("what"). The contrast survives in embedded clauses, where there are no question marks to do the work:
Sé que quiere algo, pero no sé qué quiere.
I know that he wants something, but I don't know what he wants.
Two que-shaped words, two different meanings, distinguished only by the accent. Sé que quiere algo — the unaccented que is the "that" of a declarative report. No sé qué quiere — the accented qué is the "what" of an embedded question. Drop the accent and the second clause grammatically reads as "I don't know that he wants" — nonsense in context, but technically a different sentence.
The same pair runs across the whole wh-paradigm: donde / dónde, cuando / cuándo, como / cómo, quien / quién, cual / cuál. In each case, the accented form is the interrogative; the unaccented form is the relative or temporal conjunction. Indirect questions need the accented form.
No question marks, no inversion
Embedded questions are syntactically declarative clauses. They take no inverted question marks (no ¿…? around them), and the inversions of direct-speech word order are usually flattened.
Me preguntó dónde vivía mi hermano.
He asked me where my brother lived.
Notice: no ¿…? around dónde vivía mi hermano. The whole sentence ends with a period — the question marks belong only to the original direct question, which we have absorbed.
A common English-transfer error is to write Me preguntó ¿dónde vivía mi hermano? — that is wrong. The embedded clause is no longer a question on the surface; it is a noun clause being asked about.
Word order inside the embedded clause is generally Verb–Subject (the standard Spanish wh-pattern), though with longer subjects or contrastive readings you'll see Subject–Verb as well. Both are fine; English-style strict S-V order in embedded questions sounds slightly stilted but is rarely ungrammatical.
No sé cuándo viene Marta de Bilbao.
I don't know when Marta is coming from Bilbao. (V-S order)
No sé cuándo Marta viene de Bilbao.
I don't know when Marta is coming from Bilbao. (S-V order — also fine, slightly more emphatic on 'Marta')
Reporting verbs that take indirect questions
Not every verb of speech licenses an indirect question. The verbs that do are those whose meaning involves a knowledge gap or an open alternative — asking, wondering, being unsure, ignoring, doubting, investigating.
| Verb | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| preguntar | to ask | Me preguntó si tenía hora. |
| querer saber | to want to know | Quiere saber dónde estamos. |
| no saber | not to know | No sé qué hora es. |
| ignorar | not to know (formal) | Ignoro cuándo llegará. |
| preguntarse | to wonder | Me pregunto si vendrá. |
| dudar | to doubt (whether) | Dudo si decírselo o no. |
| no estar seguro de | to be unsure (whether) | No estoy seguro de si vendrá. |
| averiguar | to find out | Quiero averiguar quién lo hizo. |
| investigar | to investigate | Están investigando cómo ocurrió. |
| explicar | to explain (under certain readings) | Explícame por qué lo hiciste. |
The verbs that cannot take an indirect question are the ones that report assertions rather than open alternatives: decir, comentar, afirmar, contar, asegurar. These take que + clause, never si or a wh-word. Dijo que venía, not ❌dijo si venía — well, almost. There is one subtle case: decir + si-clause is grammatical, but it means "to say whether" — decir is reporting the act of resolving an open alternative, not asserting a fact:
No me ha dicho si viene o no.
He hasn't told me whether or not he's coming.
Read this carefully: this is not "he hasn't said he's coming" — it's "he hasn't resolved the open question of whether he's coming". The si is what flags the open alternative.
Tense shifts inside indirect questions
The same tense-shift rules from the tense-shifts page apply: a past reporting verb pushes the embedded verb one step back. Present → imperfect, preterite → pluperfect, future → conditional.
«¿Tienes hambre?» → Me preguntó si tenía hambre.
'Are you hungry?' → He asked me if I was hungry. (present → imperfect)
«¿Has terminado?» → Me preguntó si había terminado.
'Have you finished?' → He asked me if I had finished. (present perfect → pluperfect)
«¿Cuándo llegarás?» → Me preguntó cuándo llegaría.
'When will you arrive?' → He asked me when I would arrive. (future → conditional)
As with all reported speech in peninsular Spanish, the shift is a default rather than a law. If the embedded content is still current at the moment of reporting, the unshifted form is perfectly natural:
Me ha preguntado si quieres un café.
He's just asked me whether you want a coffee. (no shift — still current)
The colloquial peninsular que si
In informal peninsular Spanish you'll constantly hear a double introducer in indirect yes/no questions: me ha preguntado que si tenía hambre. That que si is not a mistake — it is a colloquial extension where the que of declarative reports leaks into the question pattern. It is conversational, not written.
Me ha preguntado que si quería ir al cine. (informal)
He asked me whether I wanted to go to the cinema.
Le dije que si me podía echar una mano. (informal)
I asked him whether he could give me a hand.
Both me ha preguntado si and me ha preguntado que si are heard everywhere in Spain in casual speech. The double form is informal — you would not write it in a newspaper, a school essay, or a business email. In writing, stick with bare si. In WhatsApp, in the bar, with friends: que si is fine, and indeed sometimes more natural than the bare form.
The same colloquial que shows up with wh-questions too: me preguntó que dónde estabas, le dije que cuánto costaba. Again: informal only.
Indirect questions with prepositions
When the direct question has a wh-word that's the object of a preposition, the preposition migrates with the wh-word in the embedded clause. Spanish, unlike English, never strands a preposition at the end.
«¿Con quién has venido?» → Me preguntó con quién había venido.
'Who have you come with?' → He asked me who I'd come with.
«¿De qué hablabais?» → Quería saber de qué hablábamos.
'What were you talking about?' → She wanted to know what we were talking about.
«¿A quién se lo dijiste?» → Me preguntó a quién se lo había dicho.
'Who did you tell?' → He asked me who I'd told.
English ends embedded questions with stranded prepositions (who I'd come with, what we were talking about). Spanish never does that. The preposition always sits at the front of the embedded clause with the wh-word.
Common Mistakes
❌ Me preguntó que tenía hambre.
Wrong — yes/no questions take 'si', not 'que' (in careful registers).
✅ Me preguntó si tenía hambre.
He asked me if I was hungry.
❌ No sé donde he dejado las llaves.
Wrong — embedded wh-word loses its accent. The accent must stay.
✅ No sé dónde he dejado las llaves.
I don't know where I've left the keys.
❌ Me preguntó ¿qué quería para cenar?
Wrong — embedded questions take no inverted question marks; the sentence ends with a period.
✅ Me preguntó qué quería para cenar.
She asked me what I wanted for dinner.
❌ Quería saber quién había venido con.
Wrong — Spanish never strands the preposition; it must front with the wh-word.
✅ Quería saber con quién había venido.
She wanted to know who I'd come with.
❌ Me dijo si vendría a la fiesta.
With 'decir' as an assertion verb this is wrong — for a yes/no report use 'preguntar'.
✅ Me preguntó si vendría a la fiesta.
He asked me if I would come to the party.
Key takeaways
- Yes/no questions become si
- clause. Wh-questions keep the same wh-word that introduced the original question.
- Every embedded wh-word keeps its written accent — qué, dónde, cuándo, cómo, quién, cuál, cuánto, por qué. This is the single most important orthographic rule on this page.
- Embedded questions take no inverted question marks. The sentence ends with a period.
- Tense shifts work as on the tense-shifts page; content still current can stay unshifted.
- Colloquial peninsular que si / que dónde is fine in informal speech, never in writing.
- Prepositions front with the wh-word — Spanish never strands them at the end.
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
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