Reported speech: que and the backshift

Reported speech passes on what somebody said through a reporting verb and que: Il a dit qu'il était fatigué. - He said he was tired. When the reporting verb is in the past, the tense of the words slides back one step.

The glosses: He said he was tired, he had finished, he would come, he would have finished by noon, he used to work a lot, he would like to come. The last two rows do not move.

Reported speech invents no new tense. It chooses among the imparfait, the plus-que-parfait and the conditionnel, which you already have.

Que is never dropped

English drops that without a thought: he said he was tired. French never drops que, in any register.

Que elides before a vowel and stays whole before a consonant:

• Elle a dit qu'elle était en retard. - She said she was late.
• Il a dit que nous étions en retard. - He said we were late.

The backshift: one step back

A past reporting verb moves the clock. What was now for the speaker is then for you, so every tense steps one notch further into the past.

Each moving pair in a sentence:

• « Je suis fatigué. » -> Il a dit qu'il était fatigué. - He said he was tired.
• « J'ai acheté le billet. » -> Il a dit qu'il avait acheté le billet. - He said he had bought the ticket.
• « Je t'aiderai. » -> Il m'a dit qu'il m'aiderait. - He told me he would help me.
• « Nous aurons terminé avant ce soir. » -> Ils ont dit qu'ils auraient terminé avant ce soir-là. - They said they would have finished before that evening.

The two futures turn into the matching conditionals, which is why the conditionnel passé turns up in reports with no hypothesis anywhere near it.