General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 04 Topic 03.doc Reported questions Chris Reynolds is reporting questions he has heard. When we report questions, we • make the same changes to verb tenses, time and place references, pronouns and determiners as we do in reported speech • invert the subject/verb order to make it more like a statement. • omit do, does, did if used in the question. If it is a yes/no question (Do you ... ? Have you ... ? Is he ... ? etc.), we use if or whether to begin the reported question. Look Direct question Reported question "How did you actually do it?" The judge asked my client how she had actually done it. "What were you doing?" He asked me what I had been doing. "Do you realise the seriousness of your crime?" The judge asked her if she realised the seriousness of her crime. "Do you think the sentence is fair?" She asked him if he thought the sentence was fair. "Do you understand what you have done?" She asked me whether I understood what I had done. Examples 1 Listen to the examples. 1. "Do you want to come to the movies with us tomorrow night?" Dave asked if I wanted to go to the movies with them the following night. 2. "What were you doing between 3 and 5pm yesterday afternoon?" The Police asked him what he had been doing between 3 and 5pm the previous day. 3. "Did anybody see you?" The judge asked her whether anyone had seen her. 4. "Can you describe the mugger?" She asked me if I could describe the mugger. 5. "How long have you been smoking?" Paul asked me how long I had been smoking. Reporting using other "speaking" verbs The second reporter asks: Mr Reynolds, earlier we spoke to a representative for the company and the banks and they complained that the sentence was too lenient. 132 QUESTLANGUAGE