Hi, everyone. What’s up?

Hoje o podcast Inglês Online fala sobre a maneira indireta de se “fazer uma pergunta” em inglês.

Transcrição

Hi, everyone. How have you been? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has left reviews for this podcast on iTunes. I really appreciate it and it’s a great thing that listeners are writing reviews and rating the podcast, since I guess iTunes takes reviews and ratings into consideration, as well as the number of downloads, of course… So they take all that into consideration when deciding which podcasts are the most popular.. And recently I’ve seen Inglesonline on the popular list at the Brazilian iTunes store, so that’s really cool.

OK, today I’m gonna talk about something that I guess most schools consider, maybe, basic or pre-intermediate material. I personally think, though, that this is a topic we could hear more of. I’m talking about asking questions directly versus getting information in an indirect way. Example: How old are you? That’s a direct question. It ends with a question mark, right? Let’s say this is a police interrogation and, for some reason, these are the questions you are being asked:

* How tall are you? Where do you live?

* Where were you last night around 8 o’clock? How did you get there?

* What were you wearing? Who was with you?

So these were all direct questions, right? They all ended with a question mark. Now let’s say the police officer, for some reason, doesn’t want to be so direct. He says to you “I wanna know how tall you are”. Not “I wanna know how tall are you“. We would say “I wanna know how tall you are”.  So, that’s not even a question! It’s just a statement communicating what the officer wants to know. But, wait! The question is “How tall are you?” So why do we have to say “I want to know, or I would like to know how tall you are”? Why can’t I say “I would like to know how tall are you“?

Well, think about some things that you know: your mother’s name, the way to the office, your phone number. Again: these are examples of things you know. You know your mother’s name, you know the way to the office – let’s assume you work in an office – and you know your phone number. So, these little phrases… are they questions? No, they are three different pieces of information that you know. Your mother’s name is a piece of information; the way to the office is another one and your phone number is another piece of information.

So let’s say there’s someone chatting with you… Let’s say it’s a woman and her name is Sally. Sally isn’t a direct person, so she’s not asking you stuff directly… Every time she wants to know something, she begins with “I’d like to know… blah blah blah”. I’d like to know this, I’d like to know that. So she says to you:

I’d like to know [your age]. What would she like to know? Your age.

Then, she says: I’d like to know [your mother’s name]. What does she want to know now? Your mother’s name.

Now she’s saying: I’d like to know [the way to your office].

So [your age], [your mother’s name] and [the way to your office] are the pieces of information that she wants to acquire. They are the description of what she wants to know. Then, Sally says:

I’d like to know [how tall you are]. Can you see that “how tall you are” isn’t a question? Rather,