How to report speech in Russian?

In Russian, just like in English, there are three main ways to report that someone said something:

1. You can report their exact words (a quote) → this is called direct speech

   Учитель спросил студентку: “Вы любите русский язык?”

   Transcription: ooCHEEtyel spraSEEL stooDYENTkoo: “vy LYUbitye ROOSkiy yiZYK?”

   Translation: The teacher asked the student: “Do you like Russian?”

2. You can report the message of their words, without a quote → this is called indirect speech

   Учитель спросил студентку, любит ли она русский язык.

   Transcription: ooCHEEtyel spraSEEL stooDYENTkoo, LYUbit lee aNA ROOSkiy yiZYK.

   Translation: The teacher asked the student whether she liked the Russian language.

3. You can focus on the fact that someone spoke, by describing the message itself with a noun or pronoun.

   Учитель задал студентке вопрос.

   Transcription: ooCHEEtyel ZAdal stooDYENTkye vapROS

   Translation: The teacher asked the student a question.

In this post, we’ll teach you all three methods of reporting speech. We’ll start by teaching you about the building blocks of reported speech, then we’ll get into direct and indirect speech, and we’ll end with discussing how to use a noun to report speech.

Ready to get started? Let’s have a look.

Any statement that reports what someone said has three main parts:

• A reporting verb → Reporting verbs describe an action of speech or thought. Some English examples might be, “to say,” “to yell,” “to ask,” “to command,” etc.

  Just as in English, in Russian, the reporting verb you use may depend on how you speak physically (yelling vs. whispering) or they can vary based on the type of message you are conveying (asking vs. telling).

  We’ll give you some common examples in the sections below, or you can check out this table of the most common Russian reporting verbs with examples!

• A recipient → The recipient of speech is the person who a message was directed to.

  • With many reporting verbs, the recipient is an object of the reporting verb:

    dative case

    Он рассказал нам историю.

    Transcription: on raskaZAL nam isTOriyu

    Translation: He told us a story.

    In Russian, the recipient will most often be an indirect object, in the dative case, but the recipient can also take other cases, depending on the verb.

  • Usually, adding a recipient is optional. For example, it is perfectly fine to say:

    Мама спросила, где будет родительское собрание.

    Transcription: MAma spraSEEla, gdye BOOdit raDEEtilskaye sabRAniye

    Translation: Mom asked where the parent meeting would be.

• A message → The message is a word or phrase that represents what was said. As we said in the introduction, the message can be given in three ways:

  • In direct speech the message is given as a direct quote.

  • In indirect speech the message is given in a subordinate clause.

  • When you’re reporting the fact that someone spoke, the message can be represented by a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun.

The following sections will focus mostly on the different ways to form the message. Let’s have a look!

When directly reporting speech in Russian the message of the speech is a direct quotation. This can come either at the beginning or the end of a sentence.

• At the end of the sentence, we usually introduce the quote with a colon ( : )

  Профессор сказал: “Мы на пороге важнейшего открытия!”

  Transcription: praFYEsar skaZAL: “my na paROgye vazhNYEYsheva atKRYtiya!”

  Translation: The professor said, “We are on the verge of a major discovery!”

• At the beginning of the sentence, we generally follow the quote with a dash ( – )

  “Мы на пороге важнейшего открытия!” - сказал профессор.

  Transcription: “my na paROgye vazhNYEYsheva atKRYtiya!” - skaZAL praFYEsar

  Translation: “We are on the verge of a major discovery!” said the professor.

When you report speech indirectly in Russian, you’ll give the full content of what someone said, without using their exact words. Indirect speech summarizes the message of someone’s words or thoughts in a subordinate clause (a sentence within a sentence). For example:

In this section, we’ll go first through some rules that apply to all indirect speech clauses in Russian, and then we’ll look at some rules that are specific to reporting specific kinds of indirect speech, like statements, questions, and commands.

The last way to report speech in Russian is to use a noun or pronoun to represent the message that was conveyed. This is just like how, in English, you might say “He told me a story” or “She asked a question.”

In general, the recipient of the speech (if there is one) is in the dative case, and the noun that describes the message itself is accusative.

Here are some verbs that you can use in this pattern:

In other cases, the topic of the message can be described using a prepositional phrase, usually introduced by o (transcribed a, meaning “about”). This is similar to English phrases like, “I told him about my day.”

When the topic of speech is introduced this way the recipient is either dative or accusative, while the message takes the appropriate case for any noun that follows o (transcribed a, meaning “about”): the prepositional case.

Here are some verbs that you can use with the o + message pattern:

Let's review what we've learned:

• Indirect speech is a way to express statements, questions or requests that were expressed by someone else with some adjustments by removing or replacing the first person in the sentence.

• Reporting verbs like сказать (transcribed skaZAT), говорить (transcribed gavaREET), orспросить (transcribed spraSEET) help us to wrap the message in indirect speech explaining who is the author of the massage and who is the recipient. They require certain grammar after them (change in the pronouns or nouns/adjective endings).

• There are three types of sentences: statements, imperatives, and questions that we convert into indirect speech. Each of them takes a certain pattern.

• Word order when transforming general questions into indirect speech sentences differs from direct speech.

• In Russian, the tense of the verb in an indirect speech clause is the same as in the direct speech clause.

• You need to change the pronouns used in a direct speech statement while transforming the sentence into an indirect speech clause.

• Direct or indirect speech always requires certain punctuation.

• In Russian you can use a noun to express or paraphrase the message that was said in the direct speech.

Now let’s have some practice! Check out our Russian indirect speech exercises and see how you do!