Reported Statements

Reported statements are one form of reported speech.

direct statement	reported statement
He said, "I am sick."	He said that he was sick.

We usually introduce reported statements with "reporting verbs" such as "say" or "tell":

He said (that)...
He told me (that)...

When we report a statement, we can say "He said that..." or simply "He said...". Both are possible. "He said that..." is more formal.

When we use our own words to report speech, there are one or two things that we sometimes change:

pronouns may need to change to reflect a different perspective
tense sometimes has to go back one tense (eg, present becomes past) - this is called backshift

		pronoun change	tense change
direct statement	He said,	"I	am	sick."
reported statement	He said (that)	he	was	sick.

There are sometimes other things too that we may need to change, such as time or place. Look at these examples:

		pronoun change	tense change		time change
direct statement	Jane said,	"I	was	sick	yesterday."
reported statement	Jane said (that)	she	had been	sick	the day before.

			tense change		place change
direct statement	She said,	"It	is	hot in	here."
reported statement	She said (that)	it	was	hot in	there.

We also sometimes need to think about the third person singular "s":

		pronoun	person change
direct statement	Mary said,	"I	work	in London."
reported statement	Mary said (that)	she	works	in London.

Notice that in the above example, we do not change the tense. Usually, with the present simple, if something is still true now - she still works in London - we don't need to change it.

Typical reporting verbs for statements: say, tell, mention, inform

He said that...
He said...
He told me that...
He told me...
He mentioned that...
He informed me that...

Contributor: Josef Essberger