Indirect Questions in German Grammar

Word Order in Indirect Questions

The sentence structure of indirect questions in German grammar differs from that of normal questions – in indirect questions, the finite verb is placed at the end of the sentence. The rule for word order in indirect questions is: question-word + subject + object + verb.

Example:

🔊 Listen Wann hat er Zeit? – Ich weiß nicht, wann er Zeit hat.

🔊 Listen Was hat sie gesagt? – Ich sage dir nicht, was sie gesagt hat.

Indirect Questions with ob

If there’s no question word, we use ob to introduce in the indirect question.

Example:

🔊 Listen Kommt sie morgen? – Er fragt, ob sie morgen kommt.

Punctuation in Indirect Questions

Indirect questions usualy end with a full stop and not a question mark (see example above). A question mark is only used when the indirect question is an actual question.

Example:

🔊 Listen Können Sie mir sagen, wie ich zum Bahnhof komme?

Indirect questions vs. reported speech

Don’t confuse indirect questions with indirect (reported) speech.

• Indirect questions are questions that are embedded into a normal sentence.

Example:

🔊 Listen Markus: „Ich weiß nicht, um wieviel Uhr der Film anfängt.”

• Questions in reported speech are when we reproduce a question that was asked by someone else without using their exact words.

Example:

Markus: „Um wieviel Uhr fängt der Film an?” (question in direct speech)

→ Markus hat gefragt, um wieviel Uhr der Film anfängt. (question in indirect speech)

Learn more about questions in reported speech on our page all about indirect speech in German.