Reported speech is where you talk about someone, and what that person said, without necessarily quoting them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In English, you use it dozens (if not hundreds) of times every day without even realizing it.\u00a0The good news is that you can be that natural in Spanish, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n
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Direct and reported speech are two of the most frequently-used grammar points in languages, and Spanish is no exception. Whenever you talk about what someone else has said, you use either direct or reported speech.<\/p>\n
When you repeat exactly what another person has said and explicitly indicate who said it, you’re using direct speech. For example:<\/p>\n
Daniel dice: “Estoy muy cansado hoy.”<\/em> (Daniel says: “I am very tired today.”)<\/p>\n Now, let’s say you don’t remember exactly what your\u00a0compadre <\/em>(buddy) Daniel said, but you do remember the gist of it. If someone else asks you what Daniel said, you’d say something like:<\/p>\n Daniel dice que est\u00e1 muy cansado hoy.<\/em>\u00a0(Daniel says he is very tired today.)<\/p>\n That, in a nutshell, is reported speech. Spanish reported speech is where you talk about someone (other than yourself and the person you’re talking to) and what that person said without necessarily quoting them verbatim. In written texts or messages, it’s usually easier to differentiate between Spanish direct and reported speech. For starters, direct speech uses quotation marks to enclose the statement being quoted, while reported speech doesn’t. Direct speech quotes the person being talked about word-for-word, while reported speech may or may not use their exact words, though the gist of what they said is always present.<\/p>\n So that’s it, right? Differentiating direct and reported speech in Spanish is just a matter of using the right punctuation marks and whether you used the other person’s exact words, yes?\u00a0<\/p>\n Not quite. Although English and Spanish reported speech are similar for the most part, the latter has some unique quirks that we’ll be discussing in the next sections.<\/p>\n Like in English, reported speech in Spanish consists of a few basic elements: reporting verbs, connecting words like que <\/em>(“that”) and the message from the person being talked about\u2014whether the message is verbatim or not.<\/p>\n Let’s break them down below.<\/p>\n Similar to English, Spanish reporting verbs (also known as communication verbs<\/strong>) are used to signal that you’re either quoting someone directly (direct speech) or paraphrasing them (reported speech).<\/p>\n There are dozens of reporting verbs in every language, although we tend to use some of them more often than others.<\/p>\n Here are a few of the most common reporting verbs in Spanish:<\/p>\n Decir<\/em>\u00a0(to say, to tell)<\/strong><\/p>\n Decir <\/em>is probably the most common Spanish word to use when talking about what someone else said.<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nBasics of Spanish Reported Speech<\/h2>\n
Most Common Spanish Reporting Verbs<\/h3>\n