He said that: reported speech and the shift of tenses
English shifts the tense back when it repeats someone's words, and Spanish does the same, only more strictly. If the verb of saying is in the past, the whole second half steps back a place. For example: “El presentador dijo que el partido empezaba a las nueve” — The anchor said the match started at nine. A rule from the Spanish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
English shifts the tense back when it repeats someone's words, and Spanish does the same, only more strictly. If the verb of saying is in the past, the whole second half steps back a place.
The shift is always the same. Viene becomes venía. Ha venido and vino become había venido. Vendrá becomes vendría: dijo que venía. With a present-tense verb of saying nothing moves: dice que viene.
Everything else travels with the tense: yo → él, aquí → allí, hoy → aquel día, este → ese.
A question with no question word comes back with si: me preguntó si tenía visado. An order takes a special form: me dijo que le llamara.
Table
| direct speech | after dijo que… | example |
|---|---|---|
| presente: viene | imperfecto: venía | dijo que venía |
| pretérito perfecto: ha venido | pluscuamperfecto: había venido | dijo que había venido |
| indefinido: vino | pluscuamperfecto: había venido | dijo que había venido |
| futuro: vendrá | condicional: vendría | dijo que vendría |
| imperativo: ven | subjuntivo: viniera | dijo que viniera |
| a question without a word: ¿vienes? | si + verb | preguntó si venía |
| hoy / aquí / este | aquel día / allí / ese | dijo que llegaba aquel día |
By example
- El presentador dijo que el partido empezaba a las nueveThe anchor said the match started at nine
- Me preguntó si había leído el artículo enteroHe asked whether I had read the whole article
- El periodista aseguró que publicaría la entrevista al día siguienteThe journalist assured me he would publish the interview the next day
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
He said that: how does it work in Spanish?
English shifts the tense back when it repeats someone's words, and Spanish does the same, only more strictly. If the verb of saying is in the past, the whole second half steps back a place.
What does it look like in an example sentence Spanish?
“El presentador dijo que el partido empezaba a las nueve” — The anchor said the match started at nine. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.