Indirect Questions: ob and W-words
Indirect Questions: ob and W-words
Embedding a question inside another sentence ('I don't know whether he's coming') forces German's question word into a subordinate clause with the verb pushed to the end — a shift that direct questions never show.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
ob for embedded yes/no questions, verb-final
Kommt er? → Ich weiß nicht, ob er kommt. (Is he coming? → I don't know whether he's coming.)
Is he coming? → I don't know whether he's coming.
A direct yes/no question in German starts with the verb (Kommt er?). Once you embed that question inside another sentence, the verb-first order disappears entirely: ob introduces the clause and the verb (kommt) moves all the way to the end. This is a bigger change than in English, where 'whether he is coming' barely rearranges anything from the statement order — German speakers are used to a real word-order shift here that English speakers have to consciously produce.
W-words are kept, but the clause still becomes verb-final
Wann kommt er? → Ich weiß nicht, wann er kommt. (When is he coming? → I don't know when he's coming.)
When is he coming? → I don't know when he's coming.
Indirect W-questions keep the original question word (wer, was, wann, wo, warum, wie, welche...) right where it was, but everything after it now follows subordinate-clause order, with the verb at the end. The most common English-speaker mistake is to keep the direct-question verb-second order out of habit — writing 'wann kommt er' instead of 'wann er kommt' inside the embedded clause. Always double-check that the verb has moved to the very end after the W-word.
sich fragen ('to wonder') is reflexive in German
Ich frage mich, ob das stimmt. (I wonder whether that's true.)
I wonder whether that's true.
English 'to wonder' is not reflexive, but its natural German equivalent, sich fragen (literally 'to ask oneself'), is — you have to include the reflexive pronoun mich/dich/sich even though there's no separate 'oneself' in the English sentence you're translating from. Forgetting the reflexive pronoun here is a common gap that doesn't show up as an obvious error to an English-speaking ear, so it's worth deliberately drilling.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ob | op | whether/if |
| wissen | VIS-en | to know |
| sich fragen | zikh FRAH-gen | to wonder |
| ich frage mich, ob... | ikh FRAH-geh mikh, op | I wonder whether... |
| ich weiß nicht, ob... | ikh vys nikht, op | I don't know whether... |
| warum | vah-ROOM | why |
| wie | vee | how |
| welche | VEL-kheh | which |
| keine Ahnung, ob... | KY-neh AH-noong, op | no idea whether... |