Direct and Indirect Questions in English

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  Espresso English Podcast, Episode 1, Direct and Indirect Questions.

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  Hi, and welcome to the Espresso English Podcast, where you can improve your English in just a few minutes a day.

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  My name is Shana, and I'm the teacher at Espresso English.

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  Make sure to visit the website, EspressoEnglish.net,

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  where you can get online courses and e-books that will help you learn English even faster.

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  Let's get started with today's lesson.

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  Welcome, everybody.

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  Today I'm going to present the most popular post of all time on the Espresso English website,

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  and it's all about direct and indirect questions.

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  Now, what's the difference between direct questions and indirect questions?

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  Direct questions are the normal questions that we can ask to friends, family members, and people who we know well.

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  You can form direct questions using the structure you probably already learned in English class.

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  A question word plus an auxiliary verb plus the subject and then the main verb.

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  Here's an example of a direct question.

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  Where's the bathroom?

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  Indirect questions are a little more formal and polite.

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  We use them when talking to a person we don't know very well or in professional situations,

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  and their form is a little different.

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  An example of an indirect question is Could you tell me where the bathroom is?

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  Again, the direct question is Where's the bathroom?

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