French Direct and Indirect Speech: 5 Things You Should Know

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Everything you need to know about French direct and indirect speech. Develop your French sentences with this simplified French lesson.

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1. Direct speech is a piece of cake.2. Reported statements use a main clause followed by a subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction ‘que’.3. Direct speech may be pretty straightforward, but indirect speech in French sure is not.4. Reporting verbs are the ones which usually appear in indirect speech. Here is the list of the most common ones.5. Indirect speech for questions.Conclusion

Are you ready to learn about direct and indirect speech in French?

Here in this lesson, we’ve simplified the rules to make learning about French direct and indirect speech a breeze for you.

So sit back and let’s enjoy this short lesson, starting with this little gem from Henri le Chat Noir, a cat quite famous on the internet for being too French for his own good.

Henri says, “Only an idiot would surrender his dignity to this folly.“ …This is what direct speech looks like.

or

Henri says that only an idiot would surrender his dignity to this folly. …This is indirect speech.

Notice the difference? Of course you would. The first one uses exactly the same words Henri said: verbatim and using quotes. In the second one, the speech was reported with no quotations, with the help of a subordinate clause.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the direct and indirect speech for you. (Thank you, Henri, for the help!)

The good news is, it works the same way in French as it does in English.

Here are other things about French direct and indirect speech that you should know about.

1. Direct speech is a piece of cake.

Seriously, it’s a no-brainer. Here, take a look at this example.

Corey says, “I like burgers”. In French, it’s: Corey dit: “j’aime les hamburgers”.

See? It’s about as easy as it gets.

Which leads us to number 2.

2. Reported statements use a main clause followed by a subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction ‘que’.

Or qu’ before words that begin with a vowel or a mute h, such as il or elle.

Example: Corey dit qu’il aime les hamburgers. (Corey says he likes hamburgers.)

3.  Direct speech may be pretty straightforward, but indirect speech in French sure is not.

You know how it is when you think everything’s going smoothly and then life suddenly doubles back and hits you in the gut for no reason? This is one of those times, unfortunately. Just when you thought you had it easy with direct speech, here comes indirect speech which is a lot more complicated and tedious.

Indirect speech in French requires some grammatical changes, just like it does in English. So expect some changes in the following parts of speech:

• The personal pronouns and possessive pronouns/adjectives. Adjust these to the reporting point of view when necessary. When someone else reports Corey’s words, for example, je becomes il, and mon becomes son. If you report your own words, je can stay je.

Example:

Corey dit: “j‘aime mon hamburger”. Corey says, “I like my burger.” (direct)

Corey dit qu‘il aime son hamburger. Corey says that he likes his burger. (indirect)

• The conjugations of the verbs. If the subject’s person or number changes, the verb form changes to agree with it. See this example below.

Corey dit: “je veux manger mon hamburger”. Corey says, “I want to eat my burger.” (direct)

Corey dit qu’il veut manger son hamburger. Corey says he wants to eat his burger. (indirect)

Easy enough, but wait til it gets better. The example has a present-tense reporting verb, Corey dit. With a past-tense reporting verb, the subordinate verb normally shifts into a past-time perspective too, as in the example below.

Example:

Corey a dit: “je veux manger mon hamburger”. Corey said, “I want to eat my burger.” (direct)

Corey a dit qu’il voulait manger son hamburger. Corey said he wanted to eat his burger. (indirect)

• Remember that when the main verb is in the present tense, no change is necessary in the tense of the subordinate verb. But when the main verb is in the past tense, there are an awful lot of changes in tenses to be taken into consideration for the subordinate verb.

Take a look at the usual tense changes below when reporting from a past-time perspective. They are not automatic in every context: a present tense can remain when reporting a general truth or a fact that still holds at the time of reporting.

• If the verb in the direct speech is in the present or imperfect tense, it normally becomes or remains the imperfect tense in the indirect speech. (present/imperfect → imperfect)
• If the verb in the direct speech is in the perfect (passé composé) or pluperfect tense, it normally becomes or remains the pluperfect tense when changed to indirect speech. (perfect/pluperfect → pluperfect)
• If the verb is in the future or conditional tense in the direct speech, it will be in the conditional tense in the indirect speech. (future/conditional → conditional)
• If the verb in direct speech is in the future perfect tense, it will be in conditional perfect (or also called past conditional) tense in the indirect speech. (future perfect → conditional perfect)
• If the verb in direct speech is imperative, it normally becomes an infinitive introduced by de after reporting verbs such as dire or demander: Il a dit : « Viens ! » → Il a dit de venir. (imperative → de + infinitive)
• If the verb in direct speech is subjunctive, it remains subjunctive. In everyday French, its present or past tense is usually retained even after a past reporting verb; literary French can use the imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive. (subjunctive → subjunctive)

Okay, now quit screaming. This will be over soon, I promise.

4. Reporting verbs are the ones which usually appear in indirect speech. Here is the list of the most common ones.

• affirmer(to affirm or assert)
• ajouter(to add)
• annoncer(to announce)
• crier(to shout)
• déclarer(to declare)
• dire(to say)
• expliquer(to explain)
• insister(to insist)
• prétendre(to claim)
• proclamer(to proclaim)
• répondre(to answer or reply)
• soutenir(to maintain)

5. Indirect speech for questions.

You didn’t think we’d end this article without talking about questions, did you? Of course not. When it comes to changing a directly stated question into a reported one, the main rule is very simple: the reported question uses subordinate-clause word order, without direct-question inversion or est-ce que

Here is another rule: If there is no question word in the sentence, the word si which corresponds to if or whether is used instead of que.

Example:

Claire a demandé, “Est-ce que je peux manger le burger?” Claire asked, “Can I eat the burger?” (Direct speech)

Claire a demandé si elle pouvait manger le burger. Claire asked if she could eat the burger. (indirect speech)

Conclusion

So with that, we end our discussion.