Reported speech (also called indirect speech or estilo indirecto) is where you take someone else's words and report them inside another sentence. Spanish, like English, shifts the verb tense when the reporting verb is in the past. The shifts are systematic — but most learners either forget to shift at all, or shift incorrectly. This page walks through the six classic errors.
The core rule: if you use dice que (present reporting), no shift is needed. If you use dijo que, me contó que, preguntó si, or any other past reporting verb, every tense inside the reported clause must shift one step into the past. Time expressions also shift.
Mistake 1: Keeping the present after dijo que
Beginners treat reported speech like a direct copy. Spanish does not work that way: when the reporting verb is past, a present becomes an imperfect.
✅ Me dijo que venía al día siguiente.
Correct: He told me that he was coming the next day.
Two shifts happen at once: viene (present) becomes venía (imperfect), and mañana (tomorrow, from the speaker's perspective now) becomes al día siguiente (the next day, from the past perspective). Both are required.
Mistake 2: Keeping the present in an indirect question
Indirect questions follow the same rule. Preguntó si ("asked whether") is a past reporting verb, so the verb inside must shift.
✅ Me preguntó si podía ayudar.
Correct: He asked me if I could help.
Notice that English does the same shift: "can" → "could." If English would change it, Spanish almost certainly does too.
Mistake 3: Forgetting to shift future to conditional
In direct speech: Llegaré pronto ("I'll arrive soon"). When you report this in the past, the future becomes the conditional.
❌ Dijo que llegará pronto.
Wrong: He said he will arrive soon.
✅ Dijo que llegaría pronto.
Correct: He said he would arrive soon.
The conditional llegaría is the "future-in-the-past" — it expresses what, at the past moment, was going to happen later. English mirrors this exactly with "would." See Conditional.
Mistake 4: Reporting an imperative
When you report a command, the imperative disappears completely. The reported verb becomes imperfect subjunctive, introduced by que.
❌ Dijo: ¡Ven! → Dijo que ven.
Wrong: He said: Come! → He said that come.
✅ Dijo que viniera.
Correct: He told (me) to come.
Viniera is the imperfect subjunctive of venir. This construction is standard for reported commands in Spanish. There is no alternative — you cannot keep the imperative.
✅ El profesor nos dijo que no lleváramos el celular.
The teacher told us not to bring our cell phones.
See Imperfect Subjunctive for the full set of forms.
Mistake 5: Present perfect to pluperfect
He llegado ("I have arrived") becomes había llegado ("I had arrived") under a past reporting verb. This is the same pattern as English: present perfect → past perfect.
❌ Me dijo que ya ha llegado.
Wrong: He told me that he has already arrived.
✅ Me dijo que ya había llegado.
Correct: He told me that he had already arrived.
Mistake 6: Shifting after dice que
The mirror of all the above: when the reporting verb is present (dice que, me cuenta que, pregunta si), there is no shift. The reported verb stays in its original tense.
✅ Dice que viene mañana.
He says he's coming tomorrow.
✅ Me pregunta si puedo ayudar.
He's asking whether I can help.
Shifting these tenses is a hypercorrection. The rule is strictly tied to the tense of the reporting verb, not to the content being reported.
The full shift table
| Direct speech | Reported speech (past) |
|---|---|
| Present (vengo) | Imperfect (venía) |
| Preterite (vine) | Pluperfect (había venido) |
| Imperfect (venía) | Imperfect (venía) — no change |
| Present perfect (he venido) | Pluperfect (había venido) |
| Future (vendré) | Conditional (vendría) |
| Future perfect (habré venido) | Conditional perfect (habría venido) |
| Imperative (¡Ven!) | Imperfect subjunctive (viniera) |
| Present subjunctive (venga) | Imperfect subjunctive (viniera) |
Notice that the imperfect does not shift further. Once a verb is already in the imperfect, it stays there in reported speech. The same applies to the pluperfect and conditional — they are "already past enough."
Time expressions also shift
Words like hoy, mañana, ayer, ahora anchor to the speaker's present. In reported past speech, they must shift to anchors that work from the past.
| Direct | Reported (past) |
|---|---|
| hoy (today) | aquel día / ese día |
| ayer (yesterday) | el día anterior |
| mañana (tomorrow) | al día siguiente |
| ahora (now) | en ese momento / entonces |
| la semana que viene | la semana siguiente |
| aquí (here) | allí |
| este (this) | aquel / ese |
✅ Me dijo ayer que vendría al día siguiente.
He told me yesterday that he would come the next day.
✅ Prometió que ese día nos traería el libro.
He promised that on that day he would bring us the book.
Putting it all together
Here is a worked example that combines several shifts at once.
Direct speech:
Pedro: 'Mañana voy a comprar el libro que quieres.'
Pedro: 'Tomorrow I'm going to buy the book you want.'
Reported in the past:
Pedro dijo que al día siguiente iba a comprar el libro que yo quería.
Pedro said that the next day he was going to buy the book I wanted.
Three shifts fired: mañana → al día siguiente, voy → iba, and quieres → quería. The pronoun also shifted (tú → yo from my perspective as the listener).
Summary table
| Situation | Wrong | Correct |
|---|---|---|
| Present after past reporting | Me dijo que viene mañana. | Me dijo que venía al día siguiente. |
| Indirect question, present kept | Me preguntó si puedo ayudar. | Me preguntó si podía ayudar. |
| Future not shifted | Dijo que llegará pronto. | Dijo que llegaría pronto. |
| Imperative kept literally | Dijo que ven. | Dijo que viniera. |
| Present perfect kept | Me dijo que ya ha llegado. | Me dijo que ya había llegado. |
| Shifting after present reporting | Dice que venía mañana. | Dice que viene mañana. |
Reported speech is largely mechanical once you internalize the shift table. The hard part is remembering that the rule depends on the reporting verb, not on how long ago the event happened. See Reported Speech for more examples and edge cases.
Related Topics
- Reported Speech OverviewB1 — How Spanish reports what someone else said using direct and indirect speech.
- OverviewB1 — Understanding when to use preterite and when to use imperfect — the single biggest challenge of Spanish past tenses.
- Regular FormationB1 — Form the Spanish conditional by adding -ía endings to the full infinitive of any regular verb.
- Pluperfect: Formation (Había + Past Participle)B1 — Learn how to form the Spanish pluperfect tense using the imperfect of haber plus the past participle.
- Imperfect Subjunctive: -Ra FormsB2 — Learn how to form the imperfect subjunctive using the -ra endings, the most common form in Latin American Spanish.