Grammar ~21 min of the core left

Report what someone said

After this lesson you can

I can understand and pass on what another person said.

Start the lesson Core 19–21 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

5 min

You report someone's words with two verbs, and you can't swap them.

say — WHAT you say He said that he was tired.
tell — WHO you say it TO He told me that he was tired.

say does not take a person without a preposition: ✗ He said me → ✓ He said to me or He told me.

You can leave out that: He said (that) he was tired — both are correct.

When you report, the tense moves one step back:

direct speech reported
"I am tired." He said he was tired.
"I work here." She said she worked here.
"I will call you." He said he would call me.

At this level you need to RECOGNISE the shift, not build it. It is covered in full in B1, together with reporting questions and requests. For now, the important thing is to understand that was in a report does not mean the past: the person was talking about the present.

Pronouns change too: "I am tired" → He said he was tired.

Don't mix a quote and a report: either He said, "I am tired." or He said (that) he was tired.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

said me

✗ He said me that…

✓ He told me

or He said to me. Spanish me dijo, French il m'a dit, Italian mi ha detto and German er hat mir gesagt put the person straight after "say". In English say takes a person only with to. This is the main mistake of the lesson.

2

told without a person

✗ She told that she was busy

✓ She said that she was busy

or She told me that… The same languages have one verb for both (decir, dire, sagen), so learners take said or told at random. tell always needs the person: told me, told her.

3

A quote inside a report

✗ He said that "I am tired"

✓ He said that he was tired

His exact words in quotation marks are one thing, a report with that is another; don't mix them.

4

The pronoun not changed

✗ He said that I was tired (about himself) → ✓ He said that he was tired. In a report you speak from your side: his I becomes he.

Pronunciation

3 min

In a report the stress falls on the content, not on the verb of speaking:

He said he was tired. She told me she worked there.

said /sed/ is short, with the vowel /e/, not /eɪ/: it is not say with a /d/ at the end. told /təʊld/ has a long diphthong.

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Text

3 min

I called the office this morning. The manager said that he was busy and that he would call me back at two. My colleague said she had a problem with the new system. She told me that it didn't work on her computer. I said I would help her after lunch.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Gap fill.

  1. He that he was tired
  2. He me that he was tired
  3. She me about the problem
  4. She that the system didn't work
Show the answers
said, told, told, said.

2. Error correction.

  1. He said me that he was busy.
  2. He said that "I am tired".
  3. She told that she was busy.
Show the answers
He told me that he was busy. / He said that he was busy.; He said that he was tired. / He said, "I am tired."; She said that she was busy. / She told me that she was busy.

3. Matching.

  1. "I am tired."
  2. "I work here."
  3. "I will call you."
Show the answers
`"I am tired."` — He said he was tired.; `"I work here."` — He said he worked here.; `"I will call you."` — He said he would call me.

4. Report it.

  1. Tom: "I am busy."
  2. Anna: "I work here."
Show the answers
Tom said that he was busy. / Tom said he was busy.; Anna said that she worked here. / Anna said she worked here.
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Summary

Covered

  • say against tell
  • reporting with that
  • recognising the tense shift
  • the pronoun shift

Next — lesson 30: a review of lessons 25–29.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 66

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

12 words
  • say /seɪ/ to speak words (say something)
  • said /sed/ past of say
  • tell /tel/ to say something to someone (tell me, tell a story)
  • told /təʊld/ past of tell (told me)
  • ask /ɑːsk/ to say something because you want an answer
  • refuse /rɪˈfjuːz/ to say no; not to agree to do something
  • explain /ɪkˈspleɪn/ to make something clear so that someone understands it
  • call back /kɔːl ˈbæk/ to phone someone again, or someone who phoned you
  • busy /ˈbɪzi/ with a lot to do; not free
  • system /ˈsɪstəm/ a set of things that work together (a computer system)
  • mention /ˈmenʃn/ to say something about a person or thing in a few words
  • later /ˈleɪtə/ after now; at a time after this

Writing

Four sentences — report a conversation you had today.

Example

I called the office this morning. The manager said that he was busy. He said he would call me back at two. My colleague said she had a problem with the system.

Checklist

The draft is saved on this device
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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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