Reporting a question or a command requires more than just backshifting a tense — it requires restructuring the sentence entirely, because direct questions and imperatives use word orders and forms that cannot survive unchanged inside a que-clause. French handles three distinct cases, each with its own connector.
For yes/no questions (ones that could be answered with oui or non), French drops the est-ce que or inversion and introduces the reported question with si: 'Est-ce que tu viens ?' becomes 'Il m'a demandé si je venais.' Watch the elision rule here: si elides to s' before il/ils (s'il vient) but never before elle/elles (si elle vient) — this is one of the few elisions in French that applies to only some of the vowel-initial pronouns, so it has to be memorized rather than assumed to be automatic.
For information questions — the ones built with an interrogative word like où, quand, pourquoi, comment, qui, or combien — that interrogative word is simply carried over into the reported clause, again with the inverted or est-ce que structure stripped away: 'Où vas-tu ?' becomes 'Il m'a demandé où j'allais'; 'Pourquoi es-tu parti ?' becomes 'Il m'a demandé pourquoi j'étais parti.' The two exceptions to watch for are que and qu'est-ce que/qui, which do not carry over as themselves. 'Qu'est-ce que tu fais ?' / 'Que fais-tu ?' (What are you doing?) becomes 'Il m'a demandé ce que je faisais' — the invariant pronoun ce que stands in for 'what' as a direct object. 'Qu'est-ce qui se passe ?' (What's happening?) becomes 'Il m'a demandé ce qui se passait' — ce qui stands in for 'what' as the subject. Mixing these two up (using ce que where the 'what' is the subject of the verb, or vice versa) is a very frequent and noticeable error, so it helps to test which one you need by checking whether 'what' is doing the action (ce qui) or receiving it (ce que).
For commands, French cannot use the imperative inside a reported clause at all — instead it nominalizes the instruction using de + infinitive after a verb like dire, demander, or ordonner: 'Viens ici !' becomes 'Il m'a dit de venir ici.' Negative commands follow the same pattern with ne pas wrapped around the infinitive: 'Ne pars pas !' becomes 'Il m'a dit de ne pas partir.' Note that unlike reported statements and questions, reported commands don't use que at all — the whole construction pivots on de + infinitive, which functions here the way that-clauses with a subjunctive-flavored obligation might in English ('he told me to leave' rather than 'he told me that I should leave').
Exemples
« Est-ce que tu as fini ? » → Elle m'a demandé si j'avais fini.
"Have you finished?" → She asked me if I had finished.
Yes/no question reported with 'si'.
« Viendras-tu à la fête ? » → Il m'a demandé si je viendrais à la fête.
"Will you come to the party?" → He asked me if I would come to the party.
« Où habites-tu ? » → Elle m'a demandé où j'habitais.
"Where do you live?" → She asked me where I lived.
Interrogative word 'où' carries straight over.
« Qu'est-ce que tu veux ? » → Il m'a demandé ce que je voulais.
"What do you want?" → He asked me what I wanted.
'Qu'est-ce que' → 'ce que' (object).
« Qu'est-ce qui te dérange ? » → Elle m'a demandé ce qui me dérangeait.
"What's bothering you?" → She asked me what was bothering me.
'Qu'est-ce qui' → 'ce qui' (subject).
« Vient-il demain ? » → J'ai demandé s'il venait le lendemain.
"Is he coming tomorrow?" → I asked if he was coming the next day.
Elision: 'si' + 'il' → 's'il'.
« Ferme la porte ! » → Le professeur m'a dit de fermer la porte.
"Close the door!" → The teacher told me to close the door.
Imperative → de + infinitif.
« Ne touchez pas à ça ! » → On nous a dit de ne pas toucher à ça.
"Don't touch that!" → We were told not to touch that.
Negative command: 'de ne pas' + infinitif.
« Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venue ? » → Il m'a demandé pourquoi je n'étais pas venue.
"Why didn't you come?" → He asked me why I hadn't come.
« Asseyez-vous. » → L'agent nous a ordonné de nous asseoir.
"Sit down." → The officer ordered us to sit down.
Reflexive imperative → de + reflexive infinitive, pronoun matches the new subject.
Erreurs fréquentes
- Trying to keep est-ce que or inversion inside the reported clause instead of collapsing a yes/no question down to 'si'.
- Using 'ce que' for a subject question ('what is happening') or 'ce qui' for an object question, instead of correctly matching subject-'what' to ce qui and object-'what' to ce que.
- Reporting a command with 'que' plus a conjugated verb instead of switching to 'de' plus the infinitive.
- Eliding 'si' before 'elle' (writing 's'elle') by over-applying the s'il elision rule to a pronoun it doesn't apply to.
- Forgetting to also apply tense backshift and pronoun changes inside reported questions and commands, treating the restructuring as the only thing that needs to change.
Pourquoi ça trompe les anglophones
- English reported questions keep a 'wh-word + subject + verb' shape that looks superficially similar to French, which masks the fact that French requires a completely different connector (si) for yes/no questions rather than reusing any question word.
- English 'what' does double duty as both subject and object in questions, so English speakers have no built-in reason to distinguish ce qui from ce que — French forces a distinction that English never marks.
- English reported commands often keep an infinitive too ('he told me to leave'), which luckily matches French de + infinitif in form, but this false-friend similarity can mislead learners into thinking any French request or order can skip 'de', when it is in fact obligatory.