Reported speech in Spanish (estilo indirecto) is a concept that linguists use to explain how the speakers interpret another person’s words. Spaniards love cotilleos (rumors), knowing about our neighbors’ lives or telling secrets. Well, when you need to tell a past conversation, you can use the reported speech in Spanish.

What does it imply? When you interpret the literal words that other person said in the past, you will need to make changes in the vebal tenses, pronouns, adverbs and other types of words. Today we’ll focus on the verbal changes.

First of all, we should understand why we must change the tense of verbs when we use the reported speech in Spanish. If you refer to a conversation, you should introduce those words using a verbum dicendi (verb of speaking in Latin), such as decir, comentar, preguntar, declarar… In addition to this, those verbs must be in the past, because that conversation took place some time ago. Due to this, the secondary verbs will need to go a step back to the past. Let’s see some examples:

Presente de indicativo = Pretérito imperfecto

There is a strong relationship between these two tenses in Spanish. The present simple is used for descriptions and habits and the imperfect past is the same, but in the past. In the reported speech in Spanish we can see this similarity:

  • Mi amigo: “Para mejorar mi español siempre escucho podcasts y leo blogs”

  • Mi amigo dijo que para mejorar su español siempre escuchaba podcasts y leía

Pretérito imperfecto doesn’t change in the reported speech in Spanish

There is no option in Spanish to express a past habit further than the imperfect in the past. That’s why we keep the tense in the reported speech in Spanish:

  • Mi padre: “Cuando yo era joven, no había tanto tiempo para estudiar”

  • Mi padre me comentó que cuando él era joven, no había tanto tiempo para estudiar.

Pretérito indefinido = Pretérito pluscuamperfecto

However, we take a specific past action (pretérito indefinido) a step back to the past (pluperfect). That is the common use of the pluperfect in Spanish:

  • Mi profesor: “Ayer no hiciste los deberes y no estudiaste nada”.

  • Mi profesor me dijo que el día anterior no había hecho los deberes y no había estudiado

Pretérito perfecto = Pretérito pluscuamperfecto

As it happens with the pretérito indefinido, a specific action in the past, although this past is recient or in a non-finished period of time, we must take it back into the past using the pluperfect:

Pluscuamperfecto can’t go further into the past in the reported speech in Spanish

Obviously, the pluperfect tense expresses a past action that took place before another past action. So, it can’t be changed in the reported speech in Spanish.

  • Yo: “Nunca me había sentido tan cómodo en una clase de español como en Spanishviaskype.com”.

  • Le comenté a mi amigo que nunca me había sentido tan cómodo en una clase de español como en Spanishviaskype.com.

Futuros = Condicionales

The future tenses (imperfect and perfect ones) must be changed into the conditional tenses (imperfect and perfect ones) in the reported speech in Spanish. The reason is that the conditional is a kind of “future in the past”. It can express a subsequent action to another one in the past:

  • Mi hermano: “El año que viene iré a la universidad y para entonces, habré aprendido inglés”.

  • Mi hermano me confesó que al año siguiente iría a la universidad y para entonces habría aprendido inglés.

Condicionales remain in the reported speech in Spanish

As it happens with the pretérito imperfecto tense, the conditional tenses don’t change in the reported speech in Spanish.

  • Mi profe de español: “Para aprobar el examen DELE, yo practicaría el subjuntivo y ya habría estudiado el estilo indirecto”

  • Mi profe de español me avisó que para aprobar el examen DELE, él practicaría el subjuntivo y ya habría estudiado el estilo indirecto.

Of course, the reported speech in Spanish has more variables. There are also changes into the subjunctive, the interrogative sentences and also the references of person, time and space. Nevertheless, this will be a topic for further articles. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the reported speech in Spanish, don’t hesitate and reserve a free trial lesson with us.