Reported Statements: -다고 하다 / -(느)ㄴ다고

To report a statement — "she said it's raining," "they said the exam is hard," "he said he's a student" — Korean recasts the original as a plain-form clause and joins it to a speech verb (하다, 말하다, 그러다) with 고. That much is uniform. What isn't uniform, and what makes this the single most error-prone corner of reported speech, is the shape the plain form takes: it depends entirely on the class of the predicate. An action verb inserts -ㄴ다고 or -는다고; an adjective takes bare -다고; the copula 이다 morphs into -(이)라고. English hides all of this behind one flat word, "that" — she said that it's raining / that it's hard / that he's a student — so nothing in your native grammar warns you that Korean sorts the ending by what kind of word is doing the predicating. This page drills exactly that split.

The frame: plain form + 고 하다

Every reported statement is [clause in plain form] + 고 + 하다. The politeness of the original is erased (it goes plain), and the outer 하다 carries whatever politeness you want (했어요, 했습니다, 했어). The tense stays exactly as the original had it — Korean does not back-shift (see the overview). So the entire challenge reduces to: what is the correct plain form of this predicate?

The three-way split

Action verbs: the telltale -ㄴ/는-

An action verb never appears in its bare dictionary shape inside a statement quote. It takes -ㄴ다고 after a vowel stem and -는다고 after a consonant stem — the very same -ㄴ다/-는다 you know from the plain declarative (한다체). That inserted ㄴ/는 is the signal that a doing-verb is being reported.

A ㄹ-stem verb drops its ㄹ before the -ㄴ다고, exactly as it does elsewhere before ㄴ:

Adjectives: bare -다고

A descriptive verb (adjective) — 좋다, 예쁘다, 어렵다, 춥다 — takes plain -다고 with no inserted ㄴ/는. This is the cleanest half of the split: whatever the adjective's stem, you attach -다고 straight on.

Since Korean 있다/없다 pattern as adjectives here, they too take bare -다고 (재미있다고, 없다고) — never ×재미있는다고.

The copula 이다: -(이)라고, not ×-이다고

Here is the trap that catches everyone. When the predicate is a noun + 이다 ("is a…"), the reported form is -(이)라고, borrowing the same -라고 you saw in direct quotation. It is emphatically not ×-이다고. After a consonant-final noun you get -이라고; after a vowel-final noun the 이 drops and you get bare -라고.

Past and future

Tense sits inside the quote, on the predicate, before -다고. The predicate-class question is already settled by the past/future marker, so past and future are refreshingly regular:

• Past = -았/었다고 (or 이었다고/였다고 for the copula): 갔다고, 먹었다고, 좋았다고, 학생이었다고.
• Future / conjecture = -겠다고 or -(으)ㄹ 거라고: 하겠다고, 갈 거라고.

Notice that in the past and future forms, the predicate has effectively been pre-classified by its tense ending (왔-, 끝내겠-, 도착할 거-), so the -ㄴ/는 insertion question never arises there — it's only the present tense of an action verb that forces the -ㄴ다고/-는다고 choice.

Why English speakers get this wrong

English marks reported statements with one invariable complementizer, "that," and never inflects it for the class of the following predicate: she said that it rains, that it's cold, that he's a doctor. Korean does the opposite — it drops the complementizer-like flexibility and instead makes the predicate itself change shape by class. So the instinct to translate "she said (that) X" by simply attaching one fixed ending to X is precisely what produces ×가다고 (dictionary form left bare) and ×학생이다고 (copula not converted). The cure is a single reflex before you attach anything: ask what class the predicate is — doing-verb, describing-word, or noun+이다 — and the ending follows.

Relation to -다는 것

The plain-form-plus-다 you build here also underlies the noun-modifying complement -다는 것 / -다는 ("the fact that…"): 비가 온다는 것, 시험이 어렵다는 소식. It's the same reported-clause shape, redirected to modify a noun instead of a speech verb. That construction has its own page — see -다는 것: the fact that — but recognizing that it's built on today's -다고 clause makes it far less mysterious when you meet it.

Common Mistakes

1. Leaving an action verb in its bare dictionary form. A doing-verb needs the inserted -ㄴ다/-는다.

2. Converting the copula with ×-이다고 instead of -(이)라고.

3. Applying the action-verb -는다고 to an adjective. Adjectives take bare -다고.

4. Quoting a polite ending instead of the plain form. The clause must be plain; politeness rides on the outer 하다.

Key Takeaways

• Reported statement = plain-form clause + 고 하다; politeness erased inside, carried by the outer 하다; tense not back-shifted.
• Action verb → -ㄴ다고 (vowel stem: 간다고) / -는다고 (consonant stem: 먹는다고); ㄹ-stems drop ㄹ (산다고).
• Adjective (and 있다/없다) → bare -다고 (좋다고, 어렵다고, 없다고).
• Copula 이다 → -(이)라고 (학생이라고, 의사라고) — never ×-이다고.
• Past -았/었다고, future -겠다고 / -(으)ㄹ 거라고; classify the predicate first and the ending is automatic.