What Is Reported Speech (Indirect Speech)?
Reported speech (also called indirect speech) restates someone's words without quotation marks or the exact original wording. "I am tired" becomes she said she was tired. The verb tense shifts back, pronouns change to match the new speaker, and the quotation marks disappear.
Indirect reported speech pairs a reporting verb, such as said, told, or asked, with a that-clause. "I will call you tomorrow" becomes he said that he would call me the next day: the tense shifts, the pronoun changes from "you" to "me," and "tomorrow" becomes "the next day." That three-part shift, tense, pronoun, and time reference, drives every rule on this page.
This page uses "reported speech" and "indirect speech" interchangeably, since both terms describe the same grammar concept. In Examinizer's own keyword research on this topic, 62.0% of searches use the term "reported speech," 35.7% use "indirect speech," and only 1.6% use both terms together, which is why both appear in the title above.
Tense Backshift: Comparison Table of 7 Tense Pairs
"I work" becomes "she said she worked." "I have finished" becomes "she said she had finished." Backshift moves the reported verb one step further into the past than it stood in the original sentence. The table below lists all 7 pairs with a direct-speech example next to its reported form.
| Direct Tense | Reported Tense | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | Past simple | "I like tea." → She said she liked tea. |
| Present continuous | Past continuous | "I am working." → She said she was working. |
| Present perfect | Past perfect | "I have finished." → She said she had finished. |
| Past simple | Past perfect | "I finished." → She said she had finished. |
| Past continuous | Past perfect continuous | "I was working." → She said she had been working. |
| Will | Would | "I will call." → She said she would call. |
| Can | Could | "I can swim." → She said she could swim. |
Modal verbs follow their own fixed pattern: can becomes could, will becomes would, and must usually becomes had to. These shifts follow set rules rather than context, which makes them a frequent target on CEFR grammar sections. The modal verbs page covers the full list, including exceptions like "might" and "should," which stay the same regardless of tense.
Backshift isn't always mandatory. When a reported fact still holds true, or states a general or scientific truth, the original tense can stay unchanged: "The teacher said water boils at 100°C" works without shifting to "boiled." Reporting a habitual truth, or a statement made moments earlier in a live conversation, often skips backshift entirely. The tenses guide breaks down each tense form referenced in the table above.
CEFR Level Breakdown: When Reported Speech Is Taught (A1-C2)
The Council of Europe's CEFR framework spreads reported speech across nearly every level from A1 to C2, rather than teaching it in one block. Textbooks and exam boards use this scale to decide how much backshift and structural variation a learner should handle at each stage.
A1-A2 courses cover only basic reported statements, where present tense shifts to past: "I am tired" becomes "She said she was tired." B1 adds reported questions and commands, which require learners to restructure word order ("Where do you live?" becomes "She asked where I lived") and use infinitives for instructions. B2 introduces mixed tenses, modal backshift (can to could, will to would), and reporting verbs beyond say and tell, such as suggest, admit, or deny.
C1 and C2 focus on exceptions: when backshift is optional because a statement is still true, how reported conditionals work (see the conditionals page), and stylistic reporting choices used in formal writing or journalism. These nuances rarely appear in beginner materials, which is one reason advanced learners still get tripped up by them.
The grammar test gives a quick read on your current CEFR level before you tackle reported speech rules in depth. The grammar hub links out to tense, conditional, and modal verb guides for related structures.
Reported Questions and Reported Commands
Questions change shape once they move into reported speech. The word order flips back to statement order, and the helper verb "do" disappears: "Where does she live?" becomes "He asked where she lived." Yes-no questions have no question word to carry over, so the reporting sentence inserts "if" or "whether" instead: "Are you coming?" becomes "She asked if I was coming."
A wh-question shows the same pattern. Direct: "What time does the train leave?" Reported: "He asked what time the train left." The subject "the train" now comes before the verb "left," the same order used in ordinary statements.
Commands follow a separate rule. After reporting verbs like told, asked, or ordered, the instruction becomes a "to + infinitive" structure rather than a full clause. Direct: "Close the door," she said. Reported: She told him to close the door. No tense shift happens here, since infinitives don't carry tense the way finite verbs do.
One detail trips up even advanced learners: reported questions never end with a question mark. Grammatically, they're statements that happen to describe a question, so standard sentence punctuation applies. Examinizer's placement tests check this exact point, since it separates test-takers who've memorized the tense-shift rules from those who understand the underlying sentence structure. A single certificate costs €8 (incl. 21% EU VAT = €9.68) and arrives by email within 30 seconds of finishing the test.
Common Mistakes with Reported Speech
Five errors account for most of the mistakes learners make when converting direct speech into reported form.
Pronoun confusion tops the list: "She said I am tired" should become "She said she was tired," yet many learners leave the pronoun untouched and only shift the verb.
The second mistake involves word order in reported questions. "He asked where was she going" keeps the inverted question structure, but correct reported speech requires subject-verb order: "He asked where she was going."
Third, time expressions often stay in their original form. "Today," "tomorrow," and "yesterday" need to shift to "that day," "the next day," and "the day before" when the reporting happens later. Skipping this step confuses the timeline for the reader.
A fourth error runs in the opposite direction: over-applying backshift to facts that remain true or timeless. "The teacher said water boils at 100°C" doesn't need "boiled," since the fact hasn't changed. Forcing backshift here makes the sentence sound wrong even though the grammar rule technically allows either option in context.
Fifth, modal verbs cause repeated confusion during backshift: "can" becomes "could" and "will" becomes "would," but "must" and "should" often stay the same depending on meaning. The modal verbs page has a full breakdown of these shifts.
To find which of these five patterns trips you up personally, try a set of practice questions at the grammar test. Spotting your own recurring error matters more than memorizing rules in the abstract.