You often need to pass a question from one person to another. A customer asks something, and you report it to your manager: 'She asked if we deliver on weekends.' A form or an official asks you something, and later you tell a friend: 'They asked where I worked.' Reported questions also help you ask politely. 'Could you tell me where the station is?' sounds much softer than 'Where is the station?' so this grammar makes you sound both accurate and polite.

If you get the word order wrong, listeners still hear a question in the middle of your sentence, and the sentence feels broken. 'He asked where did I live' makes people stop and re-read. Learning the statement order inside reported questions makes your English flow smoothly.

Here is the key idea: a reported question is not a question anymore. It is a statement about a question. So it uses statement word order, and it ends with a period, not a question mark. Direct: 'Where do you live?' Reported: 'He asked where I lived.' Notice what disappeared: the helping verb 'do' is gone, and the subject comes before the verb again.

For wh-questions, keep the question word and then continue like a normal sentence: question word + subject + verb. 'What time does the bank open?' becomes 'She asked what time the bank opened.' 'Why are you late?' becomes 'He asked why I was late.' The wh-word stays, but everything after it flattens into statement order.

For yes/no questions, there is no question word, so you need a connector: 'if' or 'whether.' 'Do you speak French?' becomes 'She asked if I spoke French.' 'Are you coming?' becomes 'He asked whether I was coming.' 'If' and 'whether' mean the same here; 'whether' sounds a little more formal.

Backshift works exactly as it does in reported statements. Present becomes past: 'Do you like it?' becomes 'She asked if I liked it.' 'Will' becomes 'would': 'Will you help?' becomes 'He asked if I would help.' Pronouns and time words shift too: 'Are you free tomorrow?' becomes 'She asked if I was free the next day.'

The same statement order appears in polite questions, called indirect questions: 'Could you tell me where the post office is?' Not 'where is the post office.' So this one rule, subject before verb, improves both your storytelling and your politeness.

1. 1. She asked where the nearest pharmacy was.

   Statement order: 'the pharmacy was,' not 'was the pharmacy.'

2. 2. He asked if I had finished the report.

   A yes/no question needs 'if,' and 'have finished' backshifts to 'had finished.'

3. 3. They asked what time the train left.

   The helper 'does' disappears; the main verb takes the past form 'left.'

4. 4. My friend asked whether I liked the movie.

   'Whether' works just like 'if' for yes/no questions.

5. 5. The waiter asked if we wanted more water.

   'Do you want' becomes 'we wanted' with no question order.

6. 6. She asked me why I was learning English.

   'Why are you learning' flattens to 'why I was learning.'

7. 7. He asked how much the tickets cost.

   After 'how much,' the subject 'the tickets' comes before the verb.

8. 8. The nurse asked if I was allergic to anything.

   'Are you allergic?' becomes 'if I was allergic,' with a period.

9. 9. I asked her when the sale would end.

   'Will end' backshifts to 'would end' in the report.

10. 10. They asked us where we had parked the car.

    'Where did you park?' becomes 'where we had parked.'

11. 11. Could you tell me how I get to the airport?

    Polite indirect question: statement order after 'how.'

12. 12. She asked if it rained a lot there in winter.

    'Here' in the original becomes 'there' in the report.

13. 13. He didn't ask whether I needed any help.

    The reporting verb itself can be negative; the inside stays the same.

14. 14. Do you know if this bus goes downtown?

    Present-time indirect question: no backshift, but still statement order.

The classic mistake is keeping question order inside the report: 'He asked where did I live.' The extra 'did' and the flipped order belong to direct questions only. Once 'He asked' starts the sentence, the question is over, and normal order returns: 'He asked where I lived.' If you can still hear 'do,' 'does,' or 'did' inside your reported question, remove it and fix the verb.

A second mistake is dropping 'if' or 'whether' in yes/no questions: 'She asked I was hungry.' Without a connector, the two parts do not join. Say 'She asked if I was hungry.' Wh-questions do not need 'if' because the wh-word already does the connecting job; using both, as in 'He asked if where I lived,' is also wrong.

A third mistake is writing a question mark at the end: 'He asked where I lived?' A reported question is a statement, so it ends with a period. Save the question mark for direct questions like 'Where do you live?' and polite frames that really are questions, like 'Could you tell me where he lives?'

• After 'asked,' use statement order: subject first, then verb.
• Delete do, does, and did; move their tense onto the main verb.
• Yes/no questions need 'if' or 'whether' as the connector.
• Wh-words stay, but everything after them reads like a statement.
• End reported questions with a period, not a question mark.
• Polite questions use the same order: 'Could you tell me where it is?'