Reported Speech in French: tense backshift

There are two ways to pass on what somebody said. You can quote them - "Je suis fatigué" - which is direct speech (le discours direct). Or you can report them, threading the words through a verb like dire: Il a dit qu'il était fatigué. That is indirect, or reported, speech (le discours indirect), and the move that makes it work is the backshift.

The whole topic rests on one observation: when the reporting verb sits in the past, the tense of what was said slides back one step. Get that table straight and reported speech is mechanical. This page assumes you can already build the imparfait, the plus-que-parfait and the conditionnel; reported speech does not invent new tenses, it just selects among the ones you have. It focuses on declarative statements; reported questions and commands follow the same logic and get a short section near the end.

The reporting verb and the obligatory que

Indirect speech is built on a reporting verb plus que: dire que (to say that), expliquer que (to explain that), annoncer que (to announce that), répondre que (to answer that), ajouter que (to add that). The que is not optional, and it elides to qu' before a vowel.

• Il dit qu'il est là. (He says he is here.)
• Elle explique qu'elle ne peut pas venir. (She explains that she cannot come.)
• Ils ont annoncé qu'ils partaient. (They announced that they were leaving.)

English drops the conjunction without a thought - he said he was tired - but French never does. More on that in its own section below.

The one rule: past reporting verb triggers the backshift

If the reporting verb is past - a dit, a expliqué, a annoncé, a répondu - the original tense moves back. Here is the full table.

Worked out one line at a time:

• Présent -> imparfait. "Je suis fatigué" -> Il a dit qu'il était fatigué. (He said he was tired.)
• Passé composé -> plus-que-parfait. "J'ai fini" -> Il a dit qu'il avait fini. (He said he had finished.)
• Futur simple -> conditionnel présent. "Je viendrai" -> Il a dit qu'il viendrait. (He said he would come.)
• Futur antérieur -> conditionnel passé. "J'aurai fini à midi" -> Il a dit qu'il aurait fini à midi. (He said he would have finished by noon.)

Notice the pattern: each tense moves one notch further into the past. The present statement lands in the imparfait; the completed passé composé lands in the plus-que-parfait; the two future tenses swap to their matching conditional forms.

The tenses that stay put

Two tenses are already one step back, so the backshift has nowhere to send them. They do not change.

• Imparfait stays imparfait. "Je travaillais beaucoup" -> Il a dit qu'il travaillait beaucoup. (He said he used to work a lot.)
• Conditionnel stays conditionnel. "J'aimerais venir" -> Il a dit qu'il aimerait venir. (He said he would like to come.)

This is why the imparfait carries a double load in reported speech: it is both the report of a present (je suis -> il était) and the unchanged report of an original imparfait. The context tells you which. The same goes for the plus-que-parfait, which is where both the passé composé and an original plus-que-parfait land.

When the reporting verb is present, nothing shifts

The backshift is triggered only by a past reporting verb. If you report in the present - il dit que, elle explique que, on annonce que - the original tense stays exactly as spoken.

• "Je suis fatigué" -> Il dit qu'il est fatigué. (He says he is tired.)
• "J'ai fini" -> Il dit qu'il a fini. (He says he has finished.)
• "Je viendrai" -> Il dit qu'il viendra. (He says he will come.)

So the same original words, je suis fatigué, give il dit qu'il est fatigué with a present reporting verb but il a dit qu'il était fatigué with a past one. The reporting verb's tense, not the original, decides whether anything moves. The same is true of a future reporting verb (il dira que...): no backshift.

The smaller shifts: pronouns, possessives, deixis

Around the tense move sit the same adjustments English makes, because the reporter is no longer the speaker and the moment of speaking has passed.

Pronouns shift to the reporter's point of view. The original je becomes il / elle; tu becomes je if the report is by the person who was addressed.

• "Je pars" -> Il a dit qu'il partait. (He said he was leaving.)
• "Tu ne m'écoutes pas" (said to me) -> Il a dit que je ne l'écoutais pas. (He said I wasn't listening to him.)

Possessives shift the same way. Mon becomes son, notre becomes leur.

• "C'est ma voiture" -> Il a dit que c'était sa voiture. (He said it was his car.)
• "Ce sont nos affaires" -> Ils ont dit que c'était leurs affaires. (They said it was their business.)

Time and place words move away from the here-and-now. This is the deixis shift, and French has a fixed set.

So "Je pars demain" reported in the past becomes Il a dit qu'il partait le lendemain: présent to imparfait for the tense, demain to le lendemain for the time.

que is obligatory

English drops the conjunction without a thought: he said he was tired, no "that" required. French never does. The que after the reporting verb is grammatically obligatory.

• Correct: Il a dit qu'il était fatigué.
• Wrong: Il a dit il était fatigué.

This holds for every reporting verb - a expliqué que, a annoncé que, a répondu que, a ajouté que - and it is not a matter of register. Leaving que out is an error, not a casual shortcut. Remember the elision: qu'il, qu'elle, qu'on before a vowel, but que je, que nous with a full que before a consonant.

Worked examples

• "Je suis à la maison" -> Il a dit qu'il était à la maison. (He said he was at home.) - présent to imparfait.
• "J'ai acheté le billet hier" -> Il a dit qu'il avait acheté le billet la veille. (He said he had bought the ticket the day before.) - passé composé to plus-que-parfait, hier to la veille.
• "Je t'aiderai demain" -> Il m'a dit qu'il m'aiderait le lendemain. (He told me he would help me the next day.) - futur to conditionnel, deixis shift, pronoun shift.
• "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.) - futur antérieur to conditionnel passé.
• "Je vivais ici quand j'étais petit" -> Il a dit qu'il vivait là quand il était petit. (He said he used to live there when he was little.) - imparfait stays, ici to là.
• "J'aimerais bien venir aujourd'hui" -> Elle a dit qu'elle aimerait bien venir ce jour-là. (She said she would love to come that day.) - conditionnel stays, aujourd'hui to ce jour-là.

Reported questions and commands, briefly

The backshift machinery you have just built carries straight over to questions and commands; only the connector changes.

Yes/no questions report with si. No est-ce que, no inversion - just si plus the backshifted tense.

• "Tu viens ?" -> Il m'a demandé si je venais. (He asked me if I was coming.)
• "As-tu fini ?" -> Elle m'a demandé si j'avais fini. (She asked me if I had finished.)

Question-word questions keep their question word. Où, quand, pourquoi, comment stay, with normal (non-inverted) word order after them. The one swap: qu'est-ce que / que becomes ce que.

• "Où habites-tu ?" -> Il m'a demandé où j'habitais. (He asked me where I lived.)
• "Qu'est-ce que tu fais ?" -> Il m'a demandé ce que je faisais. (He asked me what I was doing.)

Commands report with de + infinitive. The imperative disappears entirely - no backshift table needed, just dire / demander à quelqu'un de faire.

• "Viens !" -> Il m'a dit de venir. (He told me to come.)
• "Ne partez pas !" -> Elle nous a demandé de ne pas partir. (She asked us not to leave.) - note both parts of the negation sit together before the infinitive.

The mistakes to drop

Dropping que. Copying English, learners write Il a dit il était fatigué or Elle a expliqué elle ne pouvait pas venir. French requires the conjunction every time: Il a dit qu'il était fatigué, Elle a expliqué qu'elle ne pouvait pas venir. If there is a reporting verb, there is a que.

Backshifting after a present reporting verb. Producing Il dit qu'il était fatigué for "he says he is tired" over-applies the rule. Il dit is present, so nothing shifts: Il dit qu'il est fatigué. The backshift is the past reporting verb's job alone.

Shifting the imparfait or conditionnel further. Hunting for a "more past" form of an original imparfait gives errors like Il a dit qu'il avait travaillé beaucoup for "he said he used to work a lot". The imparfait is already as far back as it goes: Il a dit qu'il travaillait beaucoup. Same for the conditionnel - aimerait stays aimerait.

Forgetting the deixis shift. Leaving aujourd'hui, demain, ici untouched - Il a dit qu'il partait demain - clashes with the past frame. Move them: Il a dit qu'il partait le lendemain. The report is no longer anchored to the original moment.

Mangling the time expressions. The French deixis words are set phrases, so la veille (not "le jour avant") and le lendemain (not "le jour prochain"). Learn them as fixed units.

Get the backshift table, the present-reporting-verb exception and the obligatory que straight, and reported speech is just tense selection. The forms are ones you already own; reported speech only tells you which to reach for.

See also

• The imparfait - where present statements land after the backshift, and the tense that does not shift further.
• The plus-que-parfait - where the passé composé lands in the report.
• The conditionnel - where the futur and futur antérieur land as conditionnel présent and conditionnel passé.
• Question words - the interrogatives that survive into indirect questions unchanged.
• The imperative - the form that vanishes into de + infinitive when a command is reported.
• The French grammar cheatsheet - the tenses the backshift selects among, on one card.