Reported Speech: How to Report What Someone Said

Direct vs reported speech

Direct speech repeats someone's exact words: He said, "I love pizza."
Reported speech describes what they said without quotation marks: He said that he loved pizza.

The backshift rule

When the reporting verb is in the past (said, told), the tense in the reported clause usually shifts one step back:

Direct	Reported
"I work here."	He said he worked there.
"I am working."	He said he was working.
"I have finished."	He said he had finished.
"I will call you."	He said he would call me.
"I can help."	He said he could help.

Pronouns change too

"I love my job," she said → She said she loved her job. (I → she, my → her)

Time and place expressions shift

Direct	Reported
today	that day
tomorrow	the next day
yesterday	the day before
here	there
this	that

Reporting questions

Questions lose their question word order and question mark:

• "Where do you live?" → He asked where I lived.
• "Are you coming?" → He asked if I was coming. (yes/no questions use "if" or "whether")

Reporting commands

Use to + base verb:

• "Close the door," → He told me to close the door.
• "Don't be late," → She told me not to be late.

When the backshift doesn't apply

If the original statement is still true or is a general fact, the tense can stay the same: He said the sun rises in the east (not "rose" — it's still a fact).

Practice idea

Take a short conversation you had recently and rewrite it entirely in reported speech. Doing this with real, remembered conversations makes the pattern far more intuitive than textbook drills.