How And When To Use Reported Speech In German?

Reported speech (indirekte Rede) is used in German to report opinions or statements made by another person. It is therefore a stylistic alternative to quoting the original utterance by a third party in a more ‘objective’ and neutral manner. That is why it is often used by journalists in newspaper articles or on the news. In this blog post, I will explain how reported speech is formed in German.

The Konjunktiv 1 form of verbs is being used in order to express reported speech, particularly the third person singular or plural. The table below shows the present tense form of the Konjunktiv I. If the Konjunktiv I form happens to be the same as the original form of the verb (Indikativ), you have to use the Konjunktiv II. This is normally the case in the ich, wir or sie forms of the verb, so first person singular, as well as first and third person plural.

Let's now look at other tenses in the form of a comparison between direct and reported speech. There is only one past tense form of the Konjunktiv I- the Perfect tense with the auxiliary verbs haben or sein.

Often following phrases such as the below, reported speech can be introduced by a dass-clause or a main clause with a pronoun (the syntax rules in German are the topic of a separate blog post).

er/sie sagt(e)

er/sie behauptet(e)

er/sie meint(e)

er/sie erklärt(e)

er/sie stellt(e) fest

er/sie fragt(e)

Let's look at some more examples, comparing direct with reported speech.

“Ich finde den Vortrag sehr interessant.”

Er sagt, dass er den Vortrag sehr interessant finde.

Er sagt, er finde den Vortrag sehr interessant.

“Ich habe den Vortrag sehr interessant gefunden”

Er sagte, dass er den Vortrag sehr interessant gefunden habe.

Er sagte, er habe den Vortrag sehr interessant gefunden.

Indirect questions in reported speech

Sie fragte: “Wann sind Sie gestern in Berlin angekommen?”

Sie fragte, wann Sie gestern in Berlin angekommen seien.

Er fragt: “Musst du morgen arbeiten?”

Er fragt, ob sie morgen arbeiten müsse.

Imperative in reported speech

Wir bitten den Kellner: “Geben Sie uns bitte noch etwas Zeit bei der Auswahl”

Wir bitten den Kellner, er möge uns noch etwas Zeit bei der Auswahl geben.

Sie fordert ihn auf: “Bitte sei leise!”

Sie fordert ihn auf, er solle bitte leise sein.

 As mentioned above, the Konjunktiv II form needs to be used if the Konjunktiv I and the Indikativ form are the same.

Sie sagte: “Wir haben auf den Zug gewartet.”

Sie sagte, dass sie auf den Zug gewartet hätten (rather than “gewartet haben”)

However, if the Konjunktiv II form is the same as the Präteritum form of the verb, “würden” is used as an alternative.

Er sagte: “Sie arbeiten zu viel.”

Er sagte, dass sie zu viel arbeiten würde (rather than “arbeitete”)

Reported speech is an important topic for German students from upper-intermediate level (B2) onwards as it adds a degree of sophistication to sentences. Give it some practice and you will see it's not that difficult.

#german #reportedspeech #indirekterede #konjunktiv1

On our German language blog "Auf Deutsch, bitte!", you also find posts on many other grammar topics- from adjective endings in German, the cases in German, the passive in German, to German word order in general and German conditional clauses in particular. We also have articles that are of interest to language learners more generally, such as a review of online dictionaries and a comparison between Duolingo, Memrise, Babbel, and Busuu.