Direct And Indirect Questions

Direct and indirect questions

If we want to make direct questions in the English language, we can do it by changing the word order (Is he your brother? Was she there? Have you been to Australia?) or by using the auxiliary do 

(Do you know my brother? Does he work with you? Did they enjoy it?)

The indirect questions are not normal questions. They have the same word order as statements and we do not use the verb do to form a question. They usually come after introductory phrases combined with interrogative pronouns and adjectives (who, whom, what, which, whose), adverbs (when, where, how, why) or if, whether.

On the other hand, when you ask a direct question, like "What time is the meeting?" you're being quite informal, some might even say abrupt, or even rude. You can make it more polite by adding please, "What time is the meeting please?", but to be even more polite we rephrase it into an indirect question: " Do you know what time the meeting is?", or " Could you tell me what time the meeting is?" and if you want to be really OTT "Could you tell me what time the meeting is, please?

But they're all the same question as "What time is the meeting?". 

Study following examples-

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