Reported speech: told or said

Said and told are the irregular Past Simple forms of say and tell. They do not change with the subject's person or number: I said, she said, they said; I told, he told, we told.

For a question or negative involving the reporting verb itself, rather than its reported clause, use auxiliary did and restore the base form: didn't say, didn't tell, Did she tell you?

Said does not take a person directly after it as recipient. When the listener need not be named, said can introduce the reported clause directly or through optional that.

To name the listener with said, put to before the person: said to + person + (that) .... This is correct; it simply differs from the told pattern.

In the target reporting pattern, told needs a recipient before the message clause: told me that…, told the manager that…. Do not put to before that recipient.

The recipient can be a pronoun, me, him, her, us or them; a name, Denys; or a noun phrase, the manager or my neighbour. That is optional after the recipient.

Do not omit the recipient in told + recipient + message. Instead of She told that the shop was closed, use She told us that… or She said that….

Do not transfer to from said to me into told me. This applies to the active target pattern. In a different construction, such as The story was told to me, to is correct.

The reverse mistake is to place a person directly after said without to. Said me is incorrect as a recipient pattern; use told me or said to me.

Said to + person and told + person convey almost the same meaning and both identify the listener. Told is shorter and often more natural in everyday speech when the recipient matters.

Said to is also natural, especially in narration or a direct quotation: She said to me, “Wait here.” Style depends on the whole sentence; said to does not automatically make it formal.

Neither option is grammatically more correct. The choice concerns style and the surrounding text's pattern rather than an error.

This lesson does not explain whether to change tense in the reported clause, such as is → was or will → would. That belongs to Reported speech: statements. The examples here already supply the appropriate tenses; do not change them.

This lesson also does not cover changing pronouns from direct to reported speech, such as I → she or my → her. That belongs to Reported speech: pronoun changes. Here, the pronouns are already provided in their intended form.

Told followed by an infinitive to report an instruction or request, as in told him to close the door, is a separate construction. It is not practised here: after told and the recipient, this lesson adds (that) + clause rather than an infinitive.

Tell has other meanings and combinations without a named recipient: tell the truth, tell a story, tell a lie. The instruction to put a person after tell therefore applies to this lesson's reporting pattern, not to every use of tell.

Before choosing said or told, ask whether the sentence names a specific listener immediately after the verb. If so, choose told. If no listener is named, or the listener is introduced with to, choose said.

This simple check covers almost all examples in this lesson: told without a preposition before the person; said directly before the message, with that, or with to before the person.