Quoting and thinking

Every sentence so far has been the speaker's own claim, and a conversation in which nobody can report what anybody else said is a very short one. Japanese does the whole of quotation with a single particle, と, and the striking thing about it is how little it changes the quoted words compared with what English does to them.

と, the quotation particle

Put a clause in the plain form, add と, and follow it with a verb of saying or thinking. The clause is then that verb's content.

田中たなかさんは明日あした来くると言いいました Tanaka-san wa ashita kuru to iimashita Tanaka said he would come tomorrow

The verbs that take と are the ones you would expect: 言いう (say), 思おもう (think), 考かんがえる (consider), 聞きく (ask, hear), 書かく (write), 答こたえる (answer), 決きめる (decide). All of them work the same way, and と never changes shape.

Two mechanical points before the interesting ones. The clause must be plain, since it is not the final verb of the sentence, which is the rule from the first lesson doing its work again. And nouns and な adjectives take だ before と, not な: 学生がくせいだと思おもいます, 静しずかだと思おもいます. This is worth pausing on, because ので and のに wanted な in exactly the same position two lessons ago. There is no unifying rule to learn; と takes だ, ので and のに and んです take な, and the two sets have to be kept apart by drilling.

Direct and indirect, and how little changes

Japanese has direct quotation, written between 「 and 」, which reproduces the original words exactly, politeness and all.

田中たなかさんは「明日あした来きます」と言いいました Tanaka-san wa "ashita kimasu" to iimashita Tanaka said, "I'll come tomorrow"

It also has indirect quotation, which reports the content. Now count what has to change to convert one into the other, in each language.

Converting the English "I'll come tomorrow" into "he said he would come tomorrow" changes three things: the pronoun, from I to he; the tense, from will to would; and, if the report is made on a later day, the adverb, from tomorrow to the next day. Converting the Japanese changes exactly one: 来きます becomes 来くる, because a non-final verb takes the plain form. There is no pronoun to shift, because Japanese did not have one in the first place. There is no tense shift, for reasons in the next section. The adverb does shift if the day has changed, giving その日ひ for 明日あした, but that is a fact about the world rather than about grammar.

The practical result is that Japanese indirect quotation is much closer to the original than English indirect quotation. What it strips is politeness, honorifics and sentence-final particles: 「行いきますよ」 becomes 行いくと, losing both the ます and the よ, because those belong to the act of speaking rather than to the content.

Example. Convert 山田やまださんは「映画えいがを見みませんでした」と言いいました into indirect quotation.

Only the quoted verb changes, from the polite negative past to the plain negative past: 山田やまださんは映画えいがを見みなかったと言いいました. The brackets go, the ます frame goes, and everything else, including the particle を and the word order, stays where it was. In English the same conversion produces "Yamada said she hadn't seen the film", with a pronoun invented and the tense pushed one step further back; Japanese does neither.

Now you. Convert 先生せんせいは「この問題もんだいは難むずかしいですね」と言いいました into indirect quotation, and say what is lost.

The tense that does not shift

Japanese tense inside a quotation is fixed relative to the moment the words were said or the thought was had, not to the moment of reporting. This is the same relative-tense principle that governed 時とき three lessons ago, and it is one of the tidiest generalisations in the language.

田中たなかさんは明日あした来くると言いいました means that on the day Tanaka spoke, the coming was still in the future, so it stands in the nonpast, and it stays there no matter how long ago the conversation was. English cannot leave it alone: "he said he will come" and "he said he would come" differ, and choosing between them is a decision about the reporter's standpoint. Japanese never makes that decision, and so never gets it wrong.

The mirror case is equally clean. 田中たなかさんはもう来きたと言いいました reports that Tanaka, at the time of speaking, said the coming had already happened. Only the final verb, 言いいました, places the whole event in the past relative to now.

Whose thought is it

思おもう has a restriction that catches almost every learner, and it is the same restriction you may have met with ほしい at the end of the beginner course. You cannot flatly assert somebody else's inner state. 私わたしは行いきたいと思おもいます is fine. 田中たなかさんは行いきたいと思おもいます is not, because it claims direct access to Tanaka's mind.

The repair is ている, which reframes the thought as an observable ongoing state rather than a claim about the inside of someone's head.

田中たなかさんは日本にほんに帰かえりたいと思おもっています Tanaka-san wa nihon ni kaeritai to omotte imasu Tanaka wants to go back to Japan

So 思おもう for yourself, 思おもっている for anyone else. The same pattern is why you will see 思おもっている used of yourself too, where it suggests a settled view held over time rather than an opinion formed on the spot.

One further use is worth flagging now and gets a lesson later: the volitional form plus と思おもう, as in 行いこうと思おもいます, which expresses an intention rather than an opinion. It is the same と doing the same job, with a different form of the verb in front of it.

って, in speech

In conversation, と is very often replaced by って, which is shorter and completely standard in casual speech. It does the same work.

田中たなかさん、来こないって Tanaka-san, konai tte Tanaka says he's not coming

って does three related jobs, and they run together in practice. It quotes, as above. It reports hearsay when the following verb is dropped entirely, which is how the sentence above works: nothing follows って and the listener supplies "he says". And it introduces a topic for definition, standing in for という or とは, as in 納豆なっとうって何なんですか, "what's this natto?".

That last job connects to という, which is not casual at all and is used constantly in ordinary speech and writing to attach a name to a thing.

「田中たなか」という人ひとから電話でんわがありました "Tanaka" to iu hito kara denwa ga arimashita there was a call from a person called Tanaka

Note that という is a modifying clause of the kind built four lessons ago, sitting in front of the noun 人ひと. Nothing new is going on: と言いう is quoting the name, and the whole thing describes the person.

One more distinction belongs here, because it is the commonest reporting verb of all and learners routinely pick the wrong one. と言いいました reports the act of saying, on one occasion. と言いっていました reports the standing content of what somebody said, and it is what you want when you are relaying a message. 田中たなかさんは来こないと言いっていました, "Tanaka said he isn't coming", is the natural way to pass that on; 言いいました draws attention to the moment of speech, which is usually not the point. The same ている that fixed 思おもう for third persons is doing similar work here.

Example. A caller gave the name Yamada. Report the call to a colleague, and then ask what an unfamiliar word means, using って.

「山田やまだ」という方かたからお電話でんわがありました, and 「たてまえ」って何なんですか. The first uses という to attach a name to a person you cannot otherwise identify, with 方かた as the polite word for 人ひと. The second uses って in its topic-introducing job, which is the ordinary way to ask about a word: you quote it and then ask. Beginners reach for 「たてまえ」の意味いみは何なんですか, which is correct and sounds like a dictionary.

Now you. Suzuki has told you the meeting has moved to three. Pass that on casually with って, then formally.

Embedding a question

To put a question inside a sentence, keep its か and add どうか if the question was yes-or-no.

明日あした雨あめが降ふるかどうか分わかりません ashita ame ga furu ka dou ka wakarimasen I don't know whether it will rain tomorrow

どうか is optional and its presence is a matter of emphasis rather than grammar: 降ふるか分わかりません is also correct. With a question word already present, どうか is not used at all.

誰だれが来くるか知しっていますか dare ga kuru ka shitte imasu ka do you know who's coming?

何なにを買かうかまだ決きめていません nani o kau ka mada kimete imasen I haven't decided what to buy yet

One detail traps people. Before か, a noun or な adjective drops だ altogether: 学生がくせいか分わかりません, not 学生がくせいだか. So the same slot has now demanded three different things, な before ので, だ before と, and nothing before か, which is exactly the kind of thing that has to be drilled rather than reasoned about.

Example. Report that you asked the teacher whether there is an exam tomorrow.

先生せんせいに明日あした試験しけんがあるかどうか聞ききました. The embedded question keeps its own か, the yes-or-no shape licenses どうか, and the verb of asking takes に for the person asked, not を. Notice that this is not a と quotation: with an embedded question the か does the work that と does elsewhere, and adding both, as in あるかどうかと聞ききました, is wrong.

Now you. Say that you do not know whether Tanaka is a student, and that you have not decided where to go.

Vocabulary

A clause can now be attributed to somebody. What it cannot yet do is be held at arm's length: everything reported so far has been reported as fact. The next lesson supplies the whole apparatus for saying how far you are standing behind a claim, from a near certainty down to something you overheard.