 | |
| Share / Tweet / Pin Me! | |
Discours rapporté
A large part of communicating has to do with reporting what other people have said. This grammatical grapevine comes in two varieties:
- Direct speech, aka direct style
- Indirect speech, aka indirect style
Direct Speech / Discours direct
Direct speech is very simple. You simply repeat the exact words of the original speaker: you quote them. So, logically enough, written direct speech is set off by quotation marks (guillemets in French).
Par exemple …
| Ma fille dit : « Je vais être médecin ». | My daughter says, "I’m going to be a doctor." | |
| Mon fils prononce : « Moi, je veux être prof ». | My son utters, "Well, I want to be a teacher." | |
| Moi, je réponds toujours : « Je suis très fier de vous deux ». | I always respond, "I’m very proud of both of you." |
Note that you can use direct speech to quote yourself as well, such as when recounting the above conversation to your spouse.
Indirect Speech / Discours indirect
Reporting what someone has from said from your own point of view is done with indirect speech. You can skip the guillemets, but must use a specific construction:
Par exemple …
| Ma fille dit qu’elle va être médecin. | My daughter says she’s going to be a doctor. | |
| Mon fils prononce qu’il veut être prof. | My son utters that he wants to be a teacher. | |
| Moi, je réponds toujours que je suis très fier des deux. | I always respond that I’m very proud of both of them. |
As you can see, indirect speech is immediately more complicated:
- It requires a reporting verb
- and a subordinating conjunction
- followed by a subordinate clause.
- The subject pronoun in the subordinate clause has to change,
- as does the verb conjugation.
For more detail about these and other required changes, go on to page 2: Indirect speech.
Related lessons
Share / Tweet / Pin Me!
This free website is created with love and a great deal of work.
You must log in to post a comment.