Reported speech in English: backshift table and examples

Reported speech is how you pass on what someone said without quoting them word for word. It is also called indirect speech, and it is one of the last big mechanical hurdles in English grammar: once the reporting verb is in the past, nearly everything inside the sentence shifts. This is the system behind that shift.

Direct speech vs reported speech

Direct speech repeats the exact words a person used, inside quotation marks:

• She said, "I am tired."
• He said, "I have finished the report."

Reported speech tells someone what was said, without the quotation marks and usually without the exact words:

• She said she was tired.
• He said he had finished the report.

Three things change when you move from direct to reported speech: the tense (the backshift), the pronouns, and any time or place words. Take them one at a time.

Two smaller points first. The quotation marks and the comma disappear, because you are no longer quoting. And the word that is optional after most reporting verbs: She said that she was tired and She said she was tired are both correct, and dropping that is more natural in speech. With reported questions and commands, though, you never use that at all, as the sections below show.

The backshift of tenses

When the reporting verb is in the past (said, told, asked), the verb inside the reported clause moves back one step into the past. This is the single most important rule in reported speech.

A few of these need a note. The past simple and the present perfect both end up as the past perfect, so "I saw it" and "I have seen it" are both reported as she said she had seen it. In everyday speech the past simple often stays as it is (she said she saw it), especially when the order of events is already clear. Must can also stay unchanged (he said he must go). And would, could, might and should do not change, because they are already past forms: "I would help" stays as he said he would help.

The past perfect does a lot of the work in reported speech. If it is still new to you, the past perfect shows how it is built.

Pronoun changes

The pronouns shift to match the new speaker's point of view. If you report what someone else said, I usually becomes he or she, we becomes they, and the possessives follow.

• "I have lost my keys." becomes She said she had lost her keys.
• "We need your help." becomes They said they needed my help.

Always work out who is speaking and who is listening before you fix the pronouns, because your can become my, his or their depending on the situation.

Time and place word changes

Words that point to "now" and "here" in the original moment have to be adjusted, because you are reporting from a later time and often a different place.

• "I am leaving tomorrow." becomes He said he was leaving the next day.
• "I saw her here yesterday." becomes She said she had seen her there the day before.

Reported questions

Questions cause the most trouble, because the word order changes. In reported questions the order goes back to a normal statement: no inversion, and no auxiliary do.

For wh-questions, keep the question word and follow it with statement order:

• "Where do you live?" becomes She asked where I lived.
• "What time does it start?" becomes He asked what time it started.

For yes/no questions, there is no question word, so you join the clause with if or whether:

• "Are you ready?" becomes She asked if I was ready.
• "Did you call him?" becomes She asked whether I had called him.

Notice that the auxiliary do/does/did disappears completely once the verb carries the tense itself: do you live becomes I lived, and did you call becomes I had called. The same word-order change happens in polite questions such as Could you tell me where the station is?, which are covered in indirect questions.

Reported commands and requests

Commands and requests do not use a that-clause at all. You use tell or ask plus an object plus a to-infinitive.

• "Wait here." becomes He told me to wait there.
• "Please help me." becomes She asked me to help her.

For a negative command, put not before the to-infinitive:

• "Don't touch it." becomes He told me not to touch it.

Use tell for orders and ask for polite requests. Both need a person object.

Say vs tell

This pair trips up learners constantly. The rule is mechanical:

• tell must be followed by a person: tell me, tell her, told the class. (The exceptions are a few fixed phrases: tell the truth, tell a lie, tell a story.)
• say is not followed by a person directly. If you want to name the listener, you need to: say to me.

So He told me he was late is correct, and He said he was late is correct, but He said me he was late is wrong.

When not to backshift

The backshift is not always required. Leave the tense alone in these cases.

• The reporting verb is in the present. He says he is busy, not he was busy. No past reporting verb means no backshift.
• General truths and things still true now. If the fact has not stopped being true, you can keep the present: She said the Earth is round. He said he lives in Madrid (and he still does). Backshifting here is also accepted, but keeping the present is natural when the statement is permanently true.

Other reporting verbs

Say and tell do most of the work, but they are blunt: they only report that something was said. English has a large set of reporting verbs that carry the function of the original words, and using them makes your reporting sharper.

Several of these take the same to-infinitive pattern as commands and requests:

• promise, offer, agree, refuse: He promised to call. She refused to sign.
• advise, warn, remind, encourage, invite (with a person object): The doctor advised me to rest. She reminded him to lock the door.

Others take a that-clause and still follow the backshift rule:

• explain, admit, complain, claim, insist: He admitted that he had forgotten. She explained that the office was closed.

And a few take a verb in the -ing form:

• suggest, recommend, deny, apologise for: She suggested taking a break. He denied breaking the window.

You do not need all of these to be understood, but recognising them helps you read reports of speech accurately, because the verb itself tells you whether the words were a promise, a warning, a complaint or a denial. For the longer list, with the pattern each verb needs, see reporting verbs.

Common mistakes

The ones that turn up most:

1. Keeping question word order in a reported question. She asked where do I live is wrong. It is She asked where I lived - statement order, no do.
2. Using a person after say. He said me to wait is wrong. Use He told me to wait. (Say to me works for statements: He said to me that he was late.)
3. Forgetting the backshift. After a past reporting verb, She said she is tired should usually be She said she was tired.
4. Wrong time-word changes. He said he would call tomorrow (reported later) should be the next day; now should become then.
5. Using that with a command. He told me that wait is wrong. Commands take a to-infinitive: He told me to wait.

Practice

Rewrite each sentence in reported speech. Answers are below.

1. She said, "I am cooking dinner."
2. He said, "I have seen this film before."
3. "Where are you going?" she asked.
4. "Are you tired?" he asked me.
5. "Close the door," she told him.

Answers: 1. She said she was cooking dinner. 2. He said he had seen that film before. 3. She asked where I was going. 4. He asked me if I was tired. 5. She told him to close the door.