Reported Speech Overview

Discurso indireto — reported, or indirect, speech — is how Portuguese relays what someone else said without quoting them word for word. Instead of "Ele disse: «Estou cansado»" (direct speech, with quotation marks and the original words), you say "Ele disse que estava cansado" (indirect speech, no quotes, integrated into your sentence). The shift looks simple, but it involves five coordinated changes: you add que, you shift pronouns, you shift tenses, you shift time and place adverbs, and if it was a question or command, you restructure it entirely.

This page maps the whole territory and gives you the logic behind each change. The dedicated pages — tense shifts, reporting questions, and reporting commands — drill into the mechanics. Read this page first to see how everything fits together.

Direct vs indirect: the core contrast

Direct speech (discurso direto) quotes the speaker's exact words. In writing it uses quotation marks — Portuguese traditionally uses «...» (guillemets) or em-dashes (—) in dialogue, though "..." is also common in modern usage. The tense and pronouns are whatever the original speaker used.

Indirect speech (discurso indireto) integrates the reported content into your own sentence as a subordinate clause introduced by que (or se / a wh-word, for questions). You re-anchor everything to your own point of view: your pronouns, your time-frame, your perspective.

Notice what changed:

• «...» disappeared and que appeared.
• Estou (1st person present) became estava (3rd person imperfect).
• Neste projeto (this project) became naquele projeto (that project) — the demonstrative shifted away from the original speaker.
• The starting point janeiro didn't change, because it's an absolute date, not a relative one.

Five changes again: «...» → se, queres → queria, vir → ir (the location-deixis verb shifts because you're not at Ana's house anymore), hoje → nesse dia, and the question format dissolves into an embedded clause.

The five shifts, in order

Every indirect-speech conversion involves the same five operations. Always check all five; forgetting even one produces ungrammatical or nonsensical output.

Shift 1: Add que (or se, or a wh-word)

Portuguese requires an overt complementizer. Unlike English, where "he said (that) he was tired" lets you drop that, European Portuguese does not drop que in standard writing, and in speech it is almost always present. Omitting it sounds ungrammatical or heavily colloquial.

For yes/no questions, que becomes se ("if/whether"):

For wh-questions, the wh-word itself does the work — onde, quando, porque, como, quanto, quem, o que:

Shift 2: Adjust pronouns (and verb endings)

When you report someone else's speech, their eu becomes ele/ela from your perspective (unless you were the original speaker, in which case eu stays eu). Their tu might become eu (if they were talking to you), or ele/ela (if they were talking to a third party), or stay tu (if they were talking to someone else you're now addressing).

Every shift in subject pronoun forces a matching shift in the verb ending. This is mechanical but easy to forget:

Possessive pronouns shift too. O meu (my) in the speaker's mouth becomes o dele / o dela when you report it:

Object pronouns follow the same logic. Me (to me) in the original might become lhe (to him/her) when reported by a third party:

Shift 3: Shift tenses (the backshift)

This is the biggest and most systematic shift, and it gets its own dedicated page: tense shifts in reported speech. The short version: when the reporting verb is in the past (disse, perguntou, contou, explicou), the reported verb generally backshifts to a tense one step "further back":

Crucially, if the reporting verb is in the present (diz, afirma, pergunta), the tenses do not shift. You keep the original tense:

This is the single rule to internalize: past reporting verb triggers backshift; present reporting verb doesn't.

Shift 4: Shift time and place adverbs

Words that anchor to the moment of speaking — hoje, agora, amanhã, ontem, aqui — shift when reported, because the moment of speaking has moved. You're no longer standing where and when the original speaker was.

The shifts are not automatic — they depend on the real-world relationship between the original utterance and the moment of reporting. If you're reporting something today that was said today, hoje may stay hoje; if the "here" is still where you are, aqui may stay aqui. Apply the shift only when the deictic anchor has actually moved.

Shift 5: Restructure questions and commands

Questions lose their interrogative structure. Word order returns to SVO, the question mark disappears, and a wh-word or se does the connecting work. Details are on the reporting questions page.

Commands and requests (imperatives) dissolve into one of three structures — para + personal infinitive, que + subjunctive, or mandar/pedir/ordenar + infinitive. Full coverage on the reporting commands page.

Verbs that introduce reported speech

Portuguese has a rich vocabulary of "saying" verbs, each with its own register and nuance. Picking the right one is as important as getting the tense shift right — a journalist writing "o primeiro-ministro afirmou que..." signals something very different from "o primeiro-ministro admitiu que..." or "o primeiro-ministro sugeriu que...".

The dizer / contar distinction

Both translate as "to tell", but they are not interchangeable. Dizer is a neutral "say/tell" — it just reports the act of uttering. Contar emphasizes narrative content, implying a story, an account, news, or a piece of information passed on. If you're reporting a short statement, use dizer. If you're relaying a piece of news or a longer account, contar feels more natural.

Verbs that take the subjunctive

Verbs of influence (pedir, sugerir, recomendar, mandar, ordenar, exigir, insistir) typically require the subjunctive in their complement, because they describe an attempt to make something happen rather than a report of what is the case. When the main verb is in the past, this becomes the imperfect subjunctive:

Verbs of denial (negar) also often take the subjunctive, because they deny the reality of the embedded proposition:

Direct speech's stylistic signals

In written narration, Portuguese often switches between direct and indirect speech to control pace and immediacy. Direct speech feels dramatic, present; indirect speech feels summarized, reported. Journalism mixes the two: direct speech for verbatim quotes (preserving the newsworthy wording), indirect speech for paraphrase and context.

When you write dialogue, Portuguese typically uses the em-dash (travessão) rather than quotation marks:

Reporting verbs in inverted word order (disse o João rather than o João disse) are standard in Portuguese narrative, especially after a direct quote. This inversion is a register signal: it marks literary or journalistic prose.

Common Mistakes

English allows "He said (that) he was tired" with the complementizer dropped. European Portuguese does not drop que in standard usage. Always include it.

When the reporting verb is in the past, the reported verb should usually backshift. Using the present here would imply she's still tired as of right now, which may not be what the original statement conveyed.

Two errors here: the tense didn't shift (vais → ias/ia), and the pronoun wasn't adjusted to the reporter's perspective. Always check both.

Don't mix punctuation styles. Either commit to direct speech (colon + quote) or indirect speech (que + clause).

Cá/aqui and hoje anchor to the original moment. If you're reporting an old conversation, shift them to lá and naquele dia. English speakers often leave them in place because English is looser with deictic shifts.

Key Takeaways

1. Five shifts must be checked every time: que, pronouns, tenses, time/place adverbs, question/command restructuring.
2. Past reporting verb → backshift of the reported tense. Present reporting verb → no shift.
3. Portuguese does not drop que. Always include it.
4. Time and place adverbs (hoje, amanhã, aqui, este) shift only when the real-world anchor has actually moved.
5. The choice of reporting verb (dizer, afirmar, contar, sugerir, exigir...) signals register and attitude. Match the verb to the situation.
6. Verbs of influence and denial take the subjunctive; verbs of pure statement take the indicative.

For the mechanics of each shift, see the dedicated pages on tense shifts, reporting questions, and reporting commands.