0Indirekte Rede Theorie
The aim of this section is to learn how to say / to report what somebody else said before.
| German | English |
| Er sagte, er habe keine Zeit. Sie meinte, sie sei nach Berlin gefahren. Du hast allen erzählt, ich hätte im Lotto gewonnen. | He said he had no time. She said she had gone to Berlin. You told everybody I had won in the lottery. |
Rules:
What's the difference between direkte Rede (direct speech) and indirekte Rede (reported speech)? Direkte Rede is the word by word repetition. The quoted words have to be in quotation marks.
Indirekte Rede is an indirect way of repeating what somebody said.
Usually we don't use the indicative mood for this but the subjuctive mood, more precisely Konjunktiv I.
Using Konjunktiv I allows us to dissociate from the statement. This is for important for example for journalists who can't and don't want to guarantee for the truth of the statement or don't want to make any judgement.
Joy is using the indicative mood in her statment: Ich habe ...
In the direct speech Kristine reports what Joy said by using the indicative mood as well: Joy sagte, "ich habe
..."
In the indirect speech Kristine reports what Joy said by using the subjuctive mood - Konjunktiv I: Joy sagte, sie
habe ... (not: sie hat).
The two possibilities of repeating a statement
There are always two ways to repeat a statement.
Either the second sentence is a main sentence as show above or a subordinate sentence which starts with "dass".
|
statement | reported speech with a "dass"-sentence | reported speech with a main sentence |
|
Joy: Ich habe einen neuen Job. |
Joy sagte, dass sie einen neuen Job habe. |
Joy sagte, sie habe einen neuen Job. |
|
Tina: Ich bin eine Studentin. |
Tina sagte, dass sie eine Studentin sei. |
Tina sagte, sie sei eine Studentin. |
|
Andre: Ich gehe ins Bett. |
Andre sagte, dass er ins Bett gehe. |
Andre sagte, er gehe ins Bett. |
As you see the word order follows the rules we spoke already about in the topic Satzstellung.
In main sentences the main verb is at the second position and in subordinate sentences at the end.
How do you form the Konjunktiv I? Präsens
| person | ending | example (haben = to have) |
| ich | stem + e | habe |
| du | stem + est | habest |
| er / sie / es | stem + e | habe |
| wir | "infinitive" | haben |
| ihr | stem + et | habet |
| sie | "infinitive" | haben |
