Indirect Interrogative Sentences

Question

I am struggling with identifying indirect interrogative sentences in spanish. For example, what makes "Cristina no sabe dónde todavía  va a celebrar su cumpleaños" an indirect interrogative sentence, but not "Viajaremos adonde nos recomiende el agente de viajes. Can you explain this please or refer me to a lesson that does? Thanks.

Inma Sánchez · Accepted Answer

Hola Wylie
Indirect interrogative questions are a bit tricky. Here is a lesson about donde vs dónde. Take a look at the note about being able or not to replace it by "to what location/in what location". It wouldn't make sense in this case if we said:
We will travel "to what location" ???? the travel agent will recommend.
However this sounds OK saying:
We will travel where the travel agent will recommend.
In the first sentence however, as an interrogative this makes sense:
Cristina no sabe dónde va a celebrar su cumpleaños.
Cristina doesn't know "in what location" she is celebrating her birthday. (grammatically corrrect)
Saludos
Inma

Marcos Guz · Answer

Also note that the "dónde" form uses the indicative:

Cristina no sabe dónde todavía va a celebrar su cumpleaños.

while the "donde" form uses the subjunctive:

Viajaremos adonde nos recomiende el agente de viajes.

Kwiziq has a lesson that explains that (a)donde with the subjunctive means "wherever".

Scott Oliver · Answer

I still think the "Viajaremos" sentence is an indirect question. The speaker doesn't know where they're traveling.Luckily, the tilde is strictly orthographic and makes no difference in pronunciation.