How to Teach French Reported Speech – Direct vs. Indirect Speech & Concordance des Temps – A French Teacher’s Guide
When I teach la concordance des temps, I explain it through something students already do naturally: reporting what someone has said.
The French term la concordance des temps refers to the changes in verb tenses that occur when we move from direct speech, where we repeat someone’s exact words, to reported speech, where we report what that person said.
The key idea is time shift.
When the reporting verb is in the present, the tense usually stays the same. When the reporting verb is in the past, the original tense generally shifts back in time.
This is not something that happens only in French. English follows the same basic logic, which makes the comparison especially useful when I teach this lesson.
French Matching Tenses | La Concordance des Temps
Looking for resources to help you teach French reported speech? Scroll down to the section at the end of this post to see my ready-to-use resources for this topic.
Start with direct speech and reported speech
I begin by making sure students understand the difference between the two.
Direct speech means that we repeat the exact words someone said.
Elle dit : « Je suis fatiguée. »
She says: “I am tired.”
Reported speech means that we report the information without repeating the exact words.
Elle dit qu’elle est fatiguée.
She says that she is tired.
I want students to notice that the quotation marks disappear and the sentence becomes part of a larger sentence.
In French, que connects the reported information to the reporting verb.
Show students what happens when the reporting verb is in the present
This is the easiest place to begin because there is normally no tense change.
For example:
Elle dit : « Je suis fatiguée. »
becomes:
Elle dit qu’elle est fatiguée.
The reporting verb dit is in the present, so suis stays in the present.
I give students a few examples like this before introducing the past reporting verb.
Change the reporting verb to the past
Once students understand what happens with a present reporting verb, I change it to the past.
Elle a dit : « Je suis fatiguée. »
becomes:
Elle a dit qu’elle était fatiguée.
Now the reporting verb is in the past, so the original present tense shifts back to the imparfait.
This is the basic idea I want students to understand before we start looking at all of the individual tense relationships.
Present reporting verb → usually no tense change
Past reporting verb → tense shifts backward
Introduce the idea of backshifting
I explain that when we report something from a past point of view, we move the original tense one step back in time according to the logic of the language.
This is called backshifting.
I don’t want students to simply memorize a long list of unrelated tense changes. I want them to see the relationship between the original tense and the tense we use when we report it.
The basic French pattern I give them is:
| Direct speech | Reported speech |
|---|---|
| présent | imparfait |
| imparfait | imparfait |
| passé composé | plus-que-parfait |
| futur proche | imparfait |
| futur simple | conditionnel |
This gives students a framework they can refer back to as we work through examples.
Compare French and English
One of the things I find especially useful in this lesson is showing students that French and English follow the same underlying logic.
For example:
Elle a dit : « Je bois toujours du café. »
becomes:
Elle a dit qu’elle buvait toujours du café.
In English:
She said: “I always drink coffee.”
becomes:
She said that she always drank coffee.
The French présent → imparfait relationship corresponds to the English simple present → simple past relationship.
I use this comparison throughout the lesson because students can often recognize the English pattern even when the French terminology is new to them.
Show present continuous and present tense together
I also point out that English and French don’t always organize their tenses in exactly the same way.
For example:
He said: “I am reading a book.”
becomes:
He said that he was reading a book.
In French:
Il a dit : « Je lis un livre. »
becomes:
Il a dit qu’il lisait un livre.
The French direct speech uses the présent, which shifts to the imparfait.
This is a good reminder that students shouldn’t try to match English and French tense names word for word. They need to look at the tense being used in the French sentence.
Teach passé composé → plus-que-parfait
This is one of the most important relationships in the lesson.
When the original French sentence uses the passé composé, the reported version shifts to the plus-que-parfait.
For example:
Il a dit : « Bill est arrivé samedi. »
becomes:
Il a dit que Bill était arrivé samedi.
In English:
He said: “Bill arrived on Saturday.”
becomes:
He said that Bill had arrived on Saturday.
I spend some time on this relationship because it is particularly helpful for students to see the connection between the French and English systems.
Use the same pattern with the French passé composé and English present perfect
I then give students an example that looks different in English but follows the same French pattern.
Elle a dit : « Je suis allée en Espagne. »
becomes:
Elle a dit qu’elle était allée en Espagne.
In English:
She said: “I have been to Spain.”
becomes:
She said that she had been to Spain.
Again, the French passé composé shifts to the plus-que-parfait.
This is one reason I like using the two languages side by side. Students can see that the underlying idea is similar even when the tense labels aren’t identical.
Include the past perfect and passé récent
I also teach students how to handle the idea of something that had just happened.
For example:
Il a dit : « Je viens juste de finir. »
becomes:
Il a dit qu’il venait juste de finir.
Here the French passé récent becomes venir de + infinitif à l’imparfait in the reported version.
This gives students another example of the general principle: the reporting verb is in the past, so the tense of the original statement shifts backward.
Teach futur simple → conditionnel
The next relationship I introduce is especially important because students often recognize the English version immediately.
Futur simple → conditionnel
For example:
Elle a dit : « Je t’appellerai demain. »
becomes:
Elle a dit qu’elle m’appellerait le lendemain.
In English:
She said: “I will call you tomorrow.”
becomes:
She said that she would call me the next day.
This gives students a very clear French-English parallel:
will → would
and
futur simple → conditionnel
Make students pay attention to time expressions
There is another change students need to notice when moving from direct speech to reported speech.
Sometimes the expression of time depends on the moment when the person is speaking.
For example:
demain can become le lendemain when the information is reported later.
So I teach students not to focus only on the verb.
They also need to look at expressions of time and decide whether they still make sense from the new point of view.
Give students a step-by-step process
Once we’ve looked at the individual examples, I give students a process they can use whenever they have to transform direct speech into reported speech.
Identify the direct speech
First, find the exact sentence that was said.
Then identify the tense and the meaning of that sentence.
Identify the reporting verb
Next, look at the reporting verb.
Is it in the present or the past?
If it is in the present, there is normally no tense change.
If it is in the past, the tense shift needs to be applied.
Apply the tense shift
Now identify the original tense and move it back according to the appropriate French tense relationship.
Adjust the time expressions
Look for expressions such as demain that may need to change because the point of view has changed.
Rebuild the sentence
Finally, remove the quotation marks and connect the reported information with que.
I find that giving students this process is much more useful than asking them to memorize examples without understanding what they are doing.
Emphasize the plus-que-parfait relationship
The relationship I most want students to understand is:
passé composé → plus-que-parfait
The reason is that both the French plus-que-parfait and the English pluperfect/past perfect can show that an action was already completed before another past action.
For example:
Il a dit : « Bill est arrivé samedi. »
Il a dit que Bill était arrivé samedi.
The arrival happened before the later reporting of the information.
Once students understand this relationship, the use of the plus-que-parfait in reported speech makes much more sense.
Point out an important difference between French and English
I also make sure students understand that French and English are not completely identical in reported speech.
The basic backshifting idea exists in both languages, but English can be more flexible in everyday speech.
For example, an English speaker might say:
He said he is tired.
when the information is still considered true.
French is generally more consistent about shifting the tense:
Il a dit qu’il était fatigué.
I explain this as a difference in how the two languages handle reported speech rather than telling students that one language is simply following a completely different system.
Finish by bringing everything back to the main idea
By the end of the lesson, I want students to stop thinking of la concordance des temps as a long list of tense changes to memorize.
The main idea is much simpler:
When the reporting verb is in the present, the tense usually stays the same.
When the reporting verb is in the past, the tense generally shifts backward.
From there, students can use the specific French relationships they’ve learned:
présent → imparfait
imparfait → imparfait
passé composé → plus-que-parfait
futur proche → imparfait
futur simple → conditionnel
I also remind them that the same basic idea exists in English, even though the two languages don’t always use identical tense categories.
Once students understand that they’re shifting the point of view back in time, reported speech becomes much easier to work with in French.
Practice French Reported Speech!
If your students are ready to practice direct and reported speech, la concordance des temps, and French tense shifting, these resources give them additional practice with the structures covered in this lesson.
French Matching Tenses | La Concordance des Temps | AP French Grammar Bundle
French Matching Tenses #1 – La Concordance Des Temps
French Matching Tenses #2 – La Concordance Des Temps
French Matching Tenses – La Concordance Des Temps Quiz
French Reading Comprehension Quiz – Matching Tenses – La Concordance Des Temps
