Report what someone said or asked

What you’ll learn

• Report a statement with decir que.
• Report a yes-or-no question with si.
• Adjust pronouns and time words when the reporting viewpoint changes.

Move from quotation to report

A direct quotation preserves the speaker's words: Ana dice: «Estoy cansada». A report presents the message from another viewpoint: Ana dice que está cansada. Use que after decir for the statement, and change person references when the reporter is not the original speaker. Do not keep estoy simply because it appeared in the quote.

With a past reporting verb, a past viewpoint often changes the tense: Ana dijo que estaba cansada. A reported future can become a conditional: Dijo que vendría. Tense choice also depends on whether the information remains current and how the reporter frames it, so backshift is not a mechanical rule for every sentence. The exercises specify the viewpoint they ask you to use.

Report questions and time references

A reported yes-or-no question uses si: Me preguntó si tenía tiempo. A question with an interrogative word keeps it: Me preguntó dónde vivía. The word dónde retains its accent, but the whole reported sentence is a statement and does not need direct-question marks unless you are asking a separate question yourself.

Time and place words may need adjustment. If you report a statement later, mañana may become al día siguiente and aquí may become allí. Keep the actual reference clear; do not change a time word when the reporting situation has not changed. Accuracy of meaning matters more than applying a substitution table blindly.

Useful vocabulary

decir que

to say that

preguntar si

to ask whether

al día siguiente

the next day

Common mistakes

• Change the grammatical person when the reporting viewpoint changes.
• Use si for a reported yes-or-no question, not que by default.
• Keep interrogative accents in dónde and cuándo inside indirect questions.

Keep these ideas

• Decir que reports a statement.
• Preguntar si reports a yes-or-no question.
• Adjust person, tense and time references to preserve the actual message.

Use it in your life

Choose two lines of story dialogue. Report one statement and one question in your own words, identifying the reporter and time clearly.

Read it in context

Look for this lesson’s ideas in a complete Spanish story. Read the passage first, then use its translations to check your understanding.