When you report what someone said, the reporting verb has to choose a complement, and in Romanian that choice is driven entirely by the speech-act being reported: was it a statement, a command, or a question? A statement is relayed with că ("that") + indicative; a command with să ("to") + subjunctive; a question with dacă ("whether") or a wh-word. On top of that, the addressee — the person spoken to — is dative (Mi-a spus... "he told me"), and, unlike English, Romanian does no tense backshift: a zis că vine is "he said he was coming," with vine staying in the present. This page is about the mechanics of complement selection; for the general inventory of speaking verbs (a vorbi, a întreba vs a cere, and so on), see communication verbs.
Statements: reporting verb + că + indicative
To report an assertion, use a spune, a zice, a declara, a anunța, a răspunde, a adăuga (and others) + că + an indicative clause. The conjunction că is obligatory — Romanian cannot drop it the way English drops "that" in he said he was coming.
A spus că nu mai vine la ședință.
He said he's not coming to the meeting anymore.
Primarul a declarat că lucrările vor fi gata în toamnă.
The mayor declared that the works would be finished in the autumn.
A adăugat că ne va contacta personal.
She added that she would contact us personally.
Each verb here brings its own register. a zice is colloquial, a spune neutral, a declara and a anunța formal/official (press, authorities), a răspunde ("reply") and a adăuga ("add") mark the move in a conversation. All of them take the same că + indicative for a reported statement.
Relayed commands: reporting verb + să + subjunctive
When the original utterance was an order, request, or piece of advice, the reporting verb takes să + subjunctive instead of că. This is the single most important split on the page, because the same verb (a spune, a zice) reports both statements and commands — and only the complement tells them apart.
Mi-a spus să vin mai devreme mâine.
He told me to come earlier tomorrow.
Doctorul i-a zis să nu mai fumeze.
The doctor told him to stop smoking.
Le-am spus copiilor să-și facă temele.
I told the children to do their homework.
Compare the minimal pair, which is the heart of the matter:
Mi-a spus că vine. — He told me (the fact) that he's coming.
A statement: he reports that he is coming.
Mi-a spus să vin. — He told me to come.
A command relayed: he instructs me to come.
Că vine relays an assertion ("he's coming"); să vin relays an instruction ("come!"). English keeps these apart too — told me that he's coming vs told me to come — but English uses an infinitive ("to come") where Romanian, which has no true infinitive complement here, uses the să-subjunctive (să vin). Notice also that the subjunctive carries its own person: să vin (that I come), să vină (that he come).
Questions: a întreba + dacă / wh-word
Reported yes/no questions use a întreba ("ask") + dacă ("whether/if"). Reported wh-questions keep the question word — unde (where), când (when), ce (what), cine (who), cum (how), de ce (why) — introducing the embedded clause.
M-a întrebat dacă am terminat raportul.
He asked me whether I'd finished the report.
A întrebat unde este cea mai apropiată farmacie.
She asked where the nearest pharmacy is.
Vreau să te întreb de ce ai plecat așa devreme.
I want to ask you why you left so early.
Two contrasts with the statement pattern. First, the embedded question is not introduced by că — use dacă or the wh-word. Second, the embedded clause keeps statement word order, not question word order: unde este farmacia (where the pharmacy is), not unde este farmacia? with question intonation. For the full treatment of embedded questions, see questions inside sentences. Also recall the verb split: a întreba asks a question (person in the accusative — m-a întrebat), while a cere requests a thing (covered on the communication-verbs page).
The addressee is dative
The person spoken to — the addressee — is in the dative, marked by a clitic (îmi, îți, îi, ne, vă, le) and, with a full noun, doubled by îi/le. This is why so many reported-speech sentences open with Mi-a spus..., I-a zis..., Ne-a răspuns...: the mi-, i-, ne- are dative addressees.
Mi-a spus că totul va fi bine.
He told me everything would be fine.
I-am zis Mariei să nu se îngrijoreze.
I told Maria not to worry.
Ne-a răspuns că nu mai sunt bilete.
He replied to us that there are no more tickets.
In I-am zis Mariei, the clitic i- doubles the full dative Mariei — the obligatory doubling covered on the dative and clitic doubling pages. Note that a spune/a zice/a răspunde take a dative addressee, whereas a întreba takes the person in the accusative (m-a întrebat, "asked me") — a difference of verb government you simply memorize per verb.
No tense backshift
This is where English habits actively sabotage learners. English shifts tenses back under a past reporting verb: He said he *was coming (not *is), She told me she *had finished (not *has). Romanian does not do this. The reported clause keeps the tense the speaker originally used; the reporting verb's past tense does the temporal work on its own.
A zis că vine. — He said he was coming.
Original words: 'I'm coming' (vin) → reported as present 'vine', not a past.
Mi-a spus că pleacă mâine.
He told me he was leaving tomorrow. (pleacă stays present)
A spus că a terminat deja.
He said he had already finished. (perfect stays as is, no past-perfect shift)
So a zis că vine maps to English "he said he was coming," even though vine is morphologically present. Don't try to push vine into a past tense to mirror English; that produces an unidiomatic and often confusing sentence. The original tense is preserved relative to the moment of speaking.
Common Mistakes
❌ Mi-a spus vin mâine.
Incorrect — a reported statement needs 'că': Mi-a spus că vine mâine.
✅ Mi-a spus că vine mâine.
He told me he was coming tomorrow.
❌ Mi-a spus că vin mai devreme (meaning 'he told me to come early').
Incorrect — a relayed command takes 'să', not 'că': Mi-a spus să vin mai devreme.
✅ Mi-a spus să vin mai devreme.
He told me to come earlier.
❌ M-a întrebat că am terminat.
Incorrect — a reported yes/no question uses 'dacă', not 'că': M-a întrebat dacă am terminat.
✅ M-a întrebat dacă am terminat.
He asked whether I'd finished.
❌ A zis că venea mâine (backshifting 'vine' to past).
Incorrect — Romanian keeps the original tense; no backshift: A zis că vine mâine.
✅ A zis că vine mâine.
He said he was coming tomorrow.
❌ Am spus Mariei să nu se îngrijoreze.
Incorrect — the dative addressee must be doubled: I-am spus Mariei să nu se îngrijoreze.
✅ I-am spus Mariei să nu se îngrijoreze.
I told Maria not to worry.
Key Takeaways
- The complement follows the speech-act: statement → că
- indicative; command/request → să
- subjunctive; question → dacă or a wh-word.
- indicative; command/request → să
- că is obligatory for statements (no "zero that"), and a spune/zice + să is how you relay an order (Mi-a spus să vin).
- The addressee is dative (Mi-a spus...), doubled with a clitic for a full noun; a întreba, by contrast, takes the person in the accusative.
- Romanian does no tense backshift: a zis că vine = "he said he was coming" — keep the original tense.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Direct and Indirect SpeechB2 — Turning direct speech into indirect: că for statements, să for commands, dacă for yes-no questions, wh-words for content questions, plus pronoun and deixis shifts.
- Communication Verbs (a spune, a zice, a vorbi, a întreba)B1 — How Romanian verbs of speaking take their objects: the dative person of a spune, the că-clause for reported speech, and the split between a întreba (ask a question) and a cere (request a thing).
- Embedding Questions and StatementsB1 — How to tuck a statement, a question, or a command inside a bigger sentence: indirect statements with că (Spune că vine), indirect questions with dacă or a wh-word (Nu știu dacă vine / unde e / cine a sunat), embedded commands as să-clauses (I-am spus să vină), and the crucial fact that Romanian keeps NORMAL statement order with NO question mark inside the embedded clause — and, unlike English, does NOT backshift the embedded tense (A spus că ESTE bolnav = 'he said he WAS ill').
- The Dative (indirect object, 'to')B1 — The dative marks the recipient or beneficiary of an action ('to/for someone') using the same form as the genitive — with obligatory clitic doubling and a set of verbs whose government you learn one by one.
- Clitic DoublingB1 — Romanian routinely uses a clitic pronoun alongside the full object it refers to: Îl văd pe Ion ('I see-him Ion'), Îi dau cartea Mariei ('I give-her the book to Maria'). This doubling is grammatically required — not emphatic — with a definite/animate accusative object marked by pe, with a full dative recipient, and with a fronted definite object — and it is forbidden with indefinites (Văd un om, no clitic).