B2 · Reported speech
Reported questions
No question mark — and nothing to undo, because nothing was inverted.
At a glance
- Remember
- Yes or no takes se; cosa stays cosa; full stop at the end.
- Form
- «Vieni?» → chiede se vieniyes or no
- Signal words
- chiedere se
- chiedere cosa
- sapere se
- domandarsi
- voler sapere
- Trap
- Wrong:Chiede dove abiti?Right:Chiede dove abiti.
Your turn
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The form
From the base form to the new form
Each row first says what the form expresses, then shows it in Italian: the base form before the arrow, the result after it.
| yes or no | «Vieni?» → chiede se vieni |
| with a question word | «Dove abiti?» → chiede dove abiti |
| cosa stays | «Cosa fai?» → chiede cosa fai |
| in the past | «Sei pronto?» → chiese se fosse pronto |
| no question mark | chiede quando parte il treno. |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
A yes-or-no question is joined with se.
Chiede se il museo è aperto.She asks whether the museum is open.
cosa and che cosa stay unchanged.
Non so cosa vuoi dire.I do not know what you mean.
The question mark disappears.
Chiede quando parte il treno.He asks when the train leaves.
After se in the past, congiuntivo or imperfetto.
Chiese se avessi tempo.He asked whether I had time.
Example sentences
Chiede se abbiamo bisogno di aiuto.He asks whether we need any help.
Mi domando cosa lo abbia convinto.I wonder what convinced him.
Vuole sapere quanto costa.She wants to know how much it costs.
Nessuno sa perché sia partito.Nobody knows why he left.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
The question mark travels along with the question and should not. A sentence with chiede is a statement about a question and ends with a full stop. English writers make the same slip and there is the same reason for it: the words of the question are still in the sentence, so the punctuation follows them out of habit rather than out of grammar.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
A reported question is no longer a question: it loses the question mark. Vieni? becomes Chiede se vieni.
A yes-or-no question is joined with se — the same word as the « if » of a condition, and with no connection to it here. English uses the same word too, or « whether ».
With a question word the word stays: dove, quando, come, perché, quanto. Che cosa and cosa stay as well. And there is nothing to undo on the way: English has to unpick « where do you live » into « where I live », and Italian never inverted anything in the first place.
After se in the past, either the congiuntivo or the imperfetto stands, depending on how formal the sentence is: Chiese se fosse pronto beside Chiese se era pronto. Both are current; the first is the written one.
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The verbs on this page, in every form: chiedere · avere · essere · volere · sapere · dire