Reported speech (indirect speech) is how you relay what someone said without quoting them word for word: not He said: "I'm tired," but He said that he was tired. In Norwegian this means folding the original utterance into a subordinate clause — usually introduced by at ("that") — and adjusting the pronouns, the time-and-place words, and sometimes the tense. For an English speaker the biggest trap is not the tense (Norwegian is actually looser there); it's the word order. A reported clause is subordinate, and subordinate clauses put the sentence adverb before the verb and never invert. Get that one habit right and reported speech falls into place.
Statements: the at-clause
To report a statement, attach an at-clause to a reporting verb (si — say, fortelle — tell, mene — think/mean, forklare — explain).
Han sa at han var trøtt.
He said (that) he was tired.
Hun fortalte meg at de skulle flytte til Oslo.
She told me they were going to move to Oslo.
The original "Jeg er trøtt" ("I'm tired") becomes ...at han var trøtt. Three things changed: the pronoun (jeg → han), potentially the tense (er → var), and the clause is now subordinate. As in English, at itself is often optional in speech (Han sa han var trøtt), but include it when in doubt — it never hurts. See the conjunction at.
The word order: ikke goes BEFORE the verb
This is the single most important rule on the page. Inside the at-clause the order is subject – sentence adverb – verb, not the main-clause subject – verb – adverb. So a negated reported clause puts ikke (and aldri, alltid, kanskje) before the finite verb.
Hun sa at hun ikke kom i kveld.
She said she wasn't coming tonight.
Han mente at vi aldri hadde møttes før.
He thought we'd never met before.
Compare the direct quote: "Jeg kommer ikke" — main clause, ikke after the verb. Reported, it flips to ...at hun ikke kom — ikke before the verb. English speakers, hearing the direct quote's order in their head, keep writing at hun kom ikke, which is wrong. See embedded-clause order.
Backshift of tense — and why Norwegian is looser than English
When the reporting verb is in the past (sa, fortalte, spurte), you typically shift the reported verb one step back in time, just like English:
| Direct (original) | Reported (after a past reporting verb) |
|---|---|
| «Jeg er trøtt.» (present) | Han sa at han var trøtt. (preterite) |
| «Jeg kommer.» (present/future) | Han sa at han kom / kom til å komme. |
| «Jeg har spist.» (perfect) | Han sa at han hadde spist. (pluperfect) |
Hun sa at hun hadde glemt nøklene hjemme.
She said she'd left her keys at home.
So far this mirrors English. But here's the Norwegian twist: backshift is optional, not obligatory. If what was said is still true at the moment of reporting, you can keep the original present tense, and it sounds completely natural.
Han sa at han er trøtt.
He said (that) he's tired. (still true now)
Hun fortalte at hun bor i Bergen nå.
She told me she lives in Bergen now.
Both Han sa at han er trøtt and Han sa at han var trøtt are correct Norwegian. English forces He said he was tired even if he still is; Norwegian lets you choose. Use the present (no backshift) when the statement holds as a general or current truth; use the preterite (backshift) when you're simply narrating a past report or when the truth no longer holds. Don't mechanically backshift the way an English textbook drills you to — over-rigid backshifting is itself a non-native tell.
Pronoun and deixis shifts
When you report someone, you re-anchor the utterance to your viewpoint, so person words, time words, and place words shift.
Pronouns: the speaker's jeg becomes han/hun; du (addressed to you) becomes jeg; vi may become de.
Han sa: «Jeg ringer deg i morgen.» → Han sa at han skulle ringe meg dagen etter.
He said: 'I'll call you tomorrow.' → He said he'd call me the next day.
Time and place deixis shift away from the original here-and-now:
| Direct | Reported |
|---|---|
| i dag (today) | den dagen (that day) |
| i morgen (tomorrow) | dagen etter / neste dag (the next day) |
| i går (yesterday) | dagen før (the day before) |
| her (here) | der (there) |
| nå (now) | da (then) |
Hun sa at hun ikke følte seg bra den dagen.
She said she wasn't feeling well that day.
These shifts are common sense — you're relocating the words to your own time and place — and they work just like English, so they rarely cause trouble. The tense and word order are the real work.
Reported questions
A question that gets reported stops being a question on the surface: it loses its verb-first inversion and becomes a subordinate clause introduced by om (for yes/no questions) or by the question word itself (for wh-questions). Either way, the order is plain subordinate order — no inversion.
Yes/no questions → om ("whether/if")
Hun spurte om jeg kom på festen.
She asked whether I was coming to the party.
Han lurte på om vi hadde spist.
He wondered if we'd eaten.
The direct "Kommer du?" (verb first) becomes ...om jeg kom (subject after om, then verb). The link word is om, never hvis — hvis is "if" only in the conditional sense. See embedded questions.
Wh-questions → keep the question word, drop the inversion
Han spurte hvor jeg bodde.
He asked where I lived.
Jeg spurte henne hva hun mente.
I asked her what she meant.
De ville vite når toget gikk.
They wanted to know when the train left.
The direct "Hvor bor du?" (verb–subject) becomes ...hvor jeg bodde (question word, then subject, then verb). This is exactly the spot where English speakers cling to inversion and write ...hvor bodde jeg — wrong. After the question word in a reported clause, the subject comes first.
Reported imperatives
To report a command or request, Norwegian typically uses a verb like be (ask/request) plus (om) å + infinitive — there's no special imperative form inside the report.
Han ba meg (om å) vente utenfor.
He asked me to wait outside.
Læreren ba oss om å være stille.
The teacher asked us to be quiet.
The original "Vent utenfor!" becomes Han ba meg vente utenfor. For stronger orders you can use befale (order) or report with an at-clause and a modal (Han sa at jeg skulle vente — "He said I should wait").
Common Mistakes
❌ Han sa at han var ikke trøtt.
Incorrect — main-clause order; ikke must come before the verb in the at-clause.
✅ Han sa at han ikke var trøtt.
He said he wasn't tired.
The number-one reported-speech error: keeping ikke after the verb. Inside at, it's subject – ikke – verb.
❌ Han spurte hvor bor jeg.
Incorrect — keeping question inversion in a reported question.
✅ Han spurte hvor jeg bodde.
He asked where I lived.
Reported wh-questions don't invert. The subject follows the question word, then the verb.
❌ Hun spurte hvis jeg kom.
Incorrect — hvis is conditional 'if'; reported yes/no questions take om.
✅ Hun spurte om jeg kom.
She asked if I was coming.
For "whether/if" in a reported yes/no question, use om, not hvis.
❌ Hun sa at hun har glemt nøklene i går.
Inconsistent — mixing a current-perfect with a past time word.
✅ Hun sa at hun hadde glemt nøklene dagen før.
She said she'd left her keys the day before.
If you backshift, do it consistently and shift the time word too (i går → dagen før). Or keep the present if it's still relevant — but don't mix a present-anchored verb with a past-anchored adverb.
❌ Han ba meg at vente.
Incorrect — reported imperatives use (om) å + infinitive, not at.
✅ Han ba meg (om å) vente.
He asked me to wait.
Report a command with be (noen) (om) å + infinitive, not with an at-clause.
Key Takeaways
- Report statements with an at-clause; at is often droppable but the subordinate word order is not.
- After at, the order is subject – ikke – verb — the commonest English-speaker error is leaving ikke after the verb.
- Backshift is optional in Norwegian: keep the present if the statement is still true (han sa at han er trøtt); backshift when narrating the past.
- Reported yes/no questions take om; reported wh-questions keep the question word but drop inversion (...hvor jeg bodde).
- Report commands with be (noen) (om) å + infinitive (Han ba meg vente).
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- at: That (and Its Omission)A2 — How at introduces a 'that'-clause after verbs of saying, thinking and knowing, why it can be dropped just like English 'that', and why even when dropped the clause keeps its subordinate word order (ikke before the verb).
- Embedded and Indirect QuestionsB2 — How indirect questions take subordinate (no-inversion) word order, use om for embedded yes/no, and require som when the wh-word is the subject (jeg vet ikke hvem som ringte).
- Embedded Clauses and the Verb-Late OrderB2 — The full subordinate-clause field model — subjunction + subject + sentence-adverb (ikke) before the finite verb — applied to embedded/indirect questions, where Norwegian keeps subject-before-verb order (jeg vet hvor han bor, NOT hvor bor han) and inserts som when the question word is the subject.
- Yes/No QuestionsA1 — Forming yes/no questions by putting the finite verb first, and the three-way answer system ja / jo / nei — including jo for contradicting a negative.
- Inversion: Fronting and Subject-Verb SwitchA1 — When any non-subject — a time word, an object, even a whole subordinate clause — is fronted into first position, V2 forces the subject to move behind the finite verb; English never does this, which makes it the signature learner error.
- Sequence of Tenses and Backshift in Reported SpeechC1 — When indirect speech backshifts (present→preterite, perfect→pluperfect, skal→skulle, vil→ville), when backshift is OPTIONAL for still-true facts, future-in-the-past with skulle/ville, reported questions (om/hv- + subordinate order) and commands (ba ham å…) — and the honest note that Norwegian backshift is looser than English.