Reported speech: questions, commands & tense sequence

Elle m'a demandé : « Tu viens ce soir ? »Elle m'a demandé si je venais ce soir.She asked me: "Are you coming tonight?" → She asked me if I was coming tonight.

You already know how to report a statement — reporting verb + que + clause, with the tense backshift and pronoun/time-word swaps that go with it. Reporting a question uses that same backshift machinery, just with a different connecting word; reporting a command usually drops the que-clause shape entirely, in favor of de + infinitive.

Quick shortcut: a yes/no question is reported with si; a wh-question keeps its own question word; a command becomes reporting verb + de + infinitive. The tense rules you already know still apply inside the two question types.

Reporting a yes/no question: si

A question with no question word — inverted word order, est-ce que, or just rising intonation on an ordinary statement, as in the opening example — is reported with si ("whether/if"), and the word order goes back to normal statement order:

• Il m'a demandé : « Es-tu prêt ? » → Il m'a demandé si j'étais prêt. (He asked me: "Are you ready?" → He asked me if I was ready.)
• Elle a demandé : « Est-ce que vous avez fini ? » → Elle a demandé si nous avions fini. (She asked: "Have you finished?" → She asked if we had finished.)

Si here has nothing to do with the conditional si from si-clauses — it's simply the reported-speech word for "whether."

Reporting a wh-question: keep the question word

A question built with où, quand, pourquoi, comment, combien, qui, or quel keeps that same word in the reported version. The inversion and est-ce que disappear, going back to normal statement word order — pronouns, tenses, and time words still shift the same way they do in any reported statement, when there's a reason to:

• Elle a demandé : « Où habites-tu ? » → Elle a demandé où j'habitais. (She asked: "Where do you live?" → She asked where I lived.)
• Il a demandé : « Quand est-ce que tu pars ? » → Il a demandé quand je partais. (He asked: "When are you leaving?" → He asked when I was leaving.)
• Elle a demandé : « Pourquoi as-tu fait ça ? » → Elle a demandé pourquoi j'avais fait ça. (She asked why I'd done that.)

One pair of words changes shape. Asking what — que or qu'est-ce que as an object, qu'est-ce qui as a subject — doesn't carry over directly; it becomes ce que or ce qui:

• Il a demandé : « Que fais-tu ? » / « Qu'est-ce que tu fais ? » → Il a demandé ce que je faisais. (He asked what I was doing.)
• Elle a demandé : « Qu'est-ce qui se passe ? » → Elle a demandé ce qui se passait. (She asked what was happening.)

The choice between ce que and ce qui follows the same subject/object logic as ce que/ce qui used elsewhere: ce qui when the unknown thing is the subject of its clause, ce que when it's the object.

Reporting a command or request: de + infinitive

The usual way to report an imperative doesn't use a que-clause at all. Instead, the reporting verb (dire, demander, ordonner, conseiller...) takes an indirect object for the person and de + infinitive for the command itself:

• Il m'a dit : « Pars ! » → Il m'a dit de partir. (He told me: "Leave!" → He told me to leave.)
• Elle nous a demandé : « Fermez la porte. » → Elle nous a demandé de fermer la porte. (She asked us to close the door.)
• Le prof leur a dit : « N'oubliez pas vos devoirs. » → Le prof leur a dit de ne pas oublier leurs devoirs. (The teacher told them not to forget their homework.)

Negating the reported command just negates the infinitive — ne pas stay together, right before it, exactly as in any other negated infinitive.

A handful of stronger reporting verbs — exiger, ordonner, demander in a more formal register — can also take que + subjonctif instead: Le directeur a exigé que les employés partent. (The manager demanded that the employees leave.) Both patterns are correct; de + infinitive is simply the everyday choice for most reporting verbs and most commands.

The tense rules haven't changed

Backshift still works the same way inside a reported question — a past reporting verb still pulls the si/wh-clause's tense back one step, présent → imparfait and so on:

• Il m'a demandé : « Viendras-tu ? » → Il m'a demandé si je viendrais. (futur simple → conditionnel présent, same shift as in a reported statement.)
• Elle a demandé : « Qu'as-tu fait ? » → Elle a demandé ce que j'avais fait. (passé composé → plus-que-parfait.)

A reported command has no tense to backshift at all, since the infinitive carries no tense of its own — that's one less thing to track, not an exception to the rule.

Common mistakes

• ❌ Il m'a demandé es-tu prêt. → ✅ Il m'a demandé si j'étais prêt. (a reported yes/no question needs si and normal word order, not the inverted question kept as-is)
• ❌ Elle a demandé qu'est-ce que je faisais. → ✅ Elle a demandé ce que je faisais. (qu'est-ce que doesn't survive into reported speech — it becomes ce que)
• ❌ Il m'a dit que je parte. → ✅ Il m'a dit de partir. (dire reports a command with de + infinitive, not que + subjonctif — that pattern belongs to stronger verbs like exiger/ordonner)
• ❌ Elle nous a demandé de ne fermer pas la porte. → ✅ Elle nous a demandé de ne pas fermer la porte. (ne pas stays together, right before the infinitive)

Quick check

Key takeaways

• A yes/no question is reported with si + normal word order, not the original inverted question.
• A wh-question keeps its question word (où, quand, pourquoi...) with normal word order; que/qu'est-ce que becomes ce que, and qu'est-ce qui becomes ce qui.
• A command or request usually becomes reporting verb + de + infinitive; a negative command keeps ne pas together, right before the infinitive. Stronger verbs like exiger/ordonner can instead take que + subjonctif.
• The tense backshift rules from reported statements still apply inside a reported question; a reported command has no tense to shift, since the infinitive is tenseless.