Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 94

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• 00:10

  Hi there.

• 00:10

  This is Harry, and this is the fourth podcast of the week.

• 00:13

  So thanks for joining me.

• 00:15

  In the fourth one, we're going to look, again at some grammar here.

• 00:18

  We're going to look at indirect questions.

• 00:21

  What are they and how we create them, and why do we create them?

• 00:25

  There are two types of questions, direct and indirect.

• 00:30

  A direct question is usually, what is your name?

• 00:34

  How did you get here?

• 00:36

  Who are you?

• 00:36

  Okay, so very direct and often can sound a little bit rude.

• 00:41

  If we don't want to sound rude and we want to give somebody a good feeling, or indeed we want to come across, well, then we change those direct questions into indirect questions.

• 00:54

  And to do it is quite simple.

• 00:56

  We just add some words or phrases at the beginning, which takes the stress away from the who, what, where, when, and turns them into indirect questions.

• 01:07

  So you sound more polite and people are more likely to answer your questions.

• 01:12

  So particularly if you're a foreigner to english shows and you want to find some place, hotel, bank, airport, whatever it is, try and make your questions indirect.

• 01:23

  You're more likely to get a response, more likely to get a positive response.

• 01:28

  So let me give you these examples.

• 01:30

  Direct question, where is the post office?

• 01:34

  So if you stopped somebody in the street and asked them, where is the post office?

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