Reported Speech — Statements & Backshift

You do this out loud without a flicker of thought: someone tells you something, and later you pass it on. "Mum said we're leaving at six." Easy. But the moment you have to write it down properly — in a story, or an English answer — the verbs suddenly feel slippery. Do they change? Which ones? That hesitation is normal, and it all comes down to one idea most students half-know and never quite nail: the verbs step back a step in time.

Reported speech (or indirect speech) is how you tell someone what another person said, without quoting their exact words. The trick is that the verbs usually "step back" one tense.

Direct vs reported

Direct: She said, "I am tired." Reported: She said (that) she was tired.

No speech marks, and the verb shifts back a step. That backward shift is called backshift. Notice the little word that is optional — She said that she was tired and She said she was tired are both fine.

The backshift

When the reporting verb is in the past (said, told), the tenses step back:

• present → past: "I like it" → he said he liked it.
• present continuous → past continuous: "I am waiting" → she said she was waiting.
• past → past perfect: "I saw it" → she said she had seen it.
• present perfect → past perfect: "I have finished" → he said he had finished.
• will → would: "I will come" → he said he would come.
• can → could: "I can swim" → she said she could swim.

Pronouns and time words shift too

Because you're reporting from a new place and a new time, the pronouns and the time words move as well:

"I did my homework yesterday." → She said she had done her homework the day before.

The I becomes she (you're talking about her now, not speaking as her), and yesterday becomes the day before (because the day she meant has passed). Other common time-word shifts: today becomes that day, tomorrow becomes the next day, now becomes then, and here becomes there.

Watch out — say vs tell

Tell needs a person straight after it; say doesn't:

✓ He told me he was late. · He said he was late. ✗ He said me... / He told he was late.

The quick test: if you name the person who heard it, use tell (told me, told us, told the class). If you don't name them, use say.

Why the verbs step back at all

The backshift isn't just a rule to trip you up — it makes real sense once you see it. When someone speaks, they describe their own "now". By the time you report it, that "now" has slipped into the past: it's already happened, the words have already been spoken. So the grammar quietly moves the verbs back to match the fact that you're standing at a later moment, looking back at what was said. That's why "I am tired" becomes she was tired — from where you're now telling the story, her tiredness belongs to an earlier point. Thinking of it this way is far easier than memorising a table, because the shift stops feeling random. Every step back — present to past, past to past perfect, will to would — is just the sentence keeping honest about when the speaking happened. Once that clicks, you can work out the shift for almost any verb without looking it up.

When the verb doesn't need to shift

Here's a useful extra. If something is still true when you report it, you don't have to backshift. Both of these are fine:

She said the shop opens at nine. (it still does — no shift needed) She said the shop opened at nine. (also correct)

Because the shop still opens at nine, keeping the present tense sounds perfectly natural. You'd only force it into the past if that fact had changed. In exams, full backshift is the safe default; in real writing, let the meaning guide you.

More worked examples

• "We are winning," they said. → They said they were winning.
• "I have lost my key," he said. → He said he had lost his key.
• "I'll call you tomorrow," she said. → She said she would call me the next day.
• ✗ She told that she was busy. → ✓ She said that she was busy. (no person named → say*)*
• ✗ He said me to wait. → ✓ He told me he would wait. (person named → tell*)*

A word about "that"

You'll have noticed the little word that sitting in brackets in the examples: She said (that) she was tired. That's because it's optional. In everyday writing and speech, most people drop it — She said she was tired sounds perfectly natural and slightly lighter. In more formal writing, or when the sentence is long and you want to signal clearly where the reported part begins, keeping that can help the reader: The head teacher announced that the trip had been cancelled. Neither version is wrong, so treat that as a small dial you can turn depending on how careful you want to sound. What you should not do is add a comma and speech marks — the whole point of reported speech is that you're not quoting, so She said, "that she was tired" is a tangle of two different systems. Pick one: quote with speech marks, or report with backshift and no marks.

Why it matters

Reported speech is everywhere in stories and in real accounts of what happened — retelling an argument, summing up what a witness saw, writing up an interview. Quoting every word with speech marks gets clunky fast; reported speech lets the writing flow. And getting the backshift and the say/tell split right is exactly the kind of detail that makes a piece of writing read as careful and controlled. Slip up, and the sentence quietly tells the reader you rushed.

Quick check

Report it:

1. "I am hungry," he said.

2. "We won the match," they said.

3. "I will help you," she told me.

4. "I can drive," he said.

5. Fix it: She said me the film was boring.

6. "I have finished my book," she said.

Where next

• Reporting Questions and Commands — reporting other kinds of speech.
• The Past Simple — the backshifted tense.
• Quotation Marks and Speech — direct speech.