Japanese Quotation with と: How to Say What Someone Said or Thought

Japanese quotation with と uses the quoting particle と (to) to mark where a piece of speech, thought, or feeling ends. The verb after it reports that content.¹² Once you can package a quote and hand it to a reporting verb, you can say what someone said, what they asked, and what you were thinking.

Overview

The quoting と sits between two things: the content that was said, thought, asked, or written, and the verb of speaking or thinking that reports it.¹² The same particle handles both a word-for-word quote and a paraphrase, so one pattern covers many kinds of reported speech.

What と quotes

One quoting と packages speech, thought, and feeling alike, then hands that content to a reporting verb.³⁴ It is register-neutral, meaning the same form appears in everyday conversation and in writing.³⁴

That packaged content comes in two modes. と introduces 直接引用 (direct quotation), which reproduces another person's words word-for-word inside 「」, and 間接引用 (indirect quotation), which paraphrases those words without quotation marks.⁵³⁶

The two modes, defined by the source

A direct quotation is 「他人の言葉や文章をそのままの形で、変更せずに引用すること」, "quoting another person's words or text exactly as they are, without alteration."⁵ An indirect quotation is 「他人の言葉や文章をそのままではなく、自分の言葉で要約や解釈を加えて伝える方法」, "a way of conveying another person's words or text not as-is, but by adding one's own summary or interpretation."⁵

Where this fits among subordinate clauses

Quotation with と forms a complement-type subordinate clause: the bracketed or plain content is embedded as the object of a verb of saying or thinking.³⁶ It sits alongside relative clauses and other complement clauses as one type of embedded clause. The Japanese subordinate clauses overview covers that broader placement.

The basic pattern: [quote] + と + verb

Every quotation, direct or indirect, follows one pattern: the quoted content comes first, と marks its end, and a reporting verb closes the sentence.¹³

Verbs of speaking and thinking

The verb after と is what makes the quotation frame work. と marks the end of the quote, then a verb of speaking or thinking reports it.¹³ These verbs fall into two families.

Family	Verbs
Speaking (言語関係)	言う (to say), 話す (to talk), 聞く (to hear/ask), 質問する (to ask a question), 叫ぶ (to shout)
Thinking / feeling (思考関係)	思う (to think), 考える (to consider), 感じる (to feel), 決心する (to resolve)

Imabi ranks the most frequent citation verbs as 言う, 思う, 考える, 聞く, and 話す. 書く (to write) and others also take と.⁶ Verbs like 答える (to answer) pattern with the 言う class, and 決める (to decide) with 決心する, so they take と the same way even though the consulted sources list the members above by name.

彼かれは今日きょうは忙いそがしいと言いっていた。⁵
"He was saying that he was busy today."

The quote 今日は忙しい ends at と, and 言っていた reports it. Swap in a thinking verb, and the frame stays the same.

社長しゃちょうをバカだと思おもう。³
"I think the company president is a fool."

Direct quotation: 「」 + と + 言った

A direct quotation reproduces the speaker's words exactly, enclosed in 「」 (kagikakko, Japanese quotation marks). と follows the closing 」 and comes before the reporting verb.⁵³⁶

Reproducing the speaker's exact words

Because the quote is verbatim, the politeness and style inside 「」 are preserved exactly as originally spoken. Polite forms, plain forms, and sentence-final particles all stay.⁵³ This contrasts with indirect quotation, where the quoted content is converted to plain form.

彼かれは「私わたしは猫ねこが好すきだ」と言いいました。⁷
"He said, 'I like cats.'"

The inner clause keeps its own form 好きだ, while the outer reporting verb stands on its own as 言いました. A sentence-final particle inside the quote stays for the same reason.

彼かれは昨日きのう「明日あしたは忙いそがしいよ」と言いっていた。⁵
"Yesterday he was saying, 'I'm busy tomorrow.'"

The 「」 keep the sentence-final particle intact

The particle よ stays inside 「」 because the quote is word-for-word; in an indirect quote it would be dropped.

彼かれは「明日あしたそちら（あなたのうち）へ行いきます」と言いいました。³
"He said, 'I will go to you (your place) tomorrow.'"

The polite 行きます stays inside the quote marks. Compare the indirect version below, where it becomes plain 来る.

Indirect quotation: plain form + と + 言った／思った

In indirect quotation, the quoted content is converted to plain form (普通体) before と, even when the original utterance was polite.³⁴ The reporting verb at the end may still be polite.

The plain-form rule before と

The grammar treatise states the principle directly: in indirect quotation, polite style is converted to plain style as a matter of principle (丁寧体は普通体に直すのが原則).³ Verbs and i-adjectives attach to と directly in their plain form, with no copula inserted.¹³

Polite form before と breaks the indirect quote

The treatise marks ×彼かれは昨日きのう、明日あした行いきますと言いった as unacceptable. The polite 行きます cannot sit before と in an indirect quote.³ The correct form converts the inner verb to plain 行く.

彼かれは昨日きのう、明日あした行いくと言いった。³
"Yesterday he said he would go tomorrow."

An i-adjective behaves the same way, attaching to と with no copula.

彼かれは今日きょうは忙いそがしいと言いっていた。⁵
"He was saying that he was busy today."

Nouns and na-adjectives: insert だ

Before と, a noun or na-adjective predicate must carry the plain copula だ.¹⁴ Bunpro states the rule directly: と "requires だ when used after nouns or な-Adjectives." Verbs and い-adjectives take the plain form alone.¹

This だ is easy to drop. Polite sentences end in です rather than an overt だ, so beginners trained on です may forget to supply the plain copula.¹⁴

社長しゃちょうをバカだと思おもう。³
"I think the company president is a fool."

バカ is a noun, so it takes だ before と; without だ the clause is ungrammatical as an indirect quote. A na-adjective takes the same だ.

彼かれは猫ねこが好すきだと言いいました。⁷
"He said he likes cats."

Nuance and usage contexts

Direct vs indirect: what changes

Direct quotation reproduces the original words exactly inside 「」. Indirect quotation re-expresses the content in the reporter's own words, converts it to plain form, and drops the quotation marks.⁵³ The split is fidelity versus paraphrase.

A minimal pair shows the whole shift at once: the direct 彼は「私は猫が好きだ」と言いました becomes the indirect 彼は猫が好きだと言いました.⁷ In the indirect version, the first-person 私は is dropped, since it would otherwise refer to the reporter rather than the original speaker, and the 「」 are removed.⁷

The shift is not only about quotation marks. Indirect quotation restates the original "to fit one's own speech situation, in one's own words" (自分の発話の場面に合うように、自分のことばに直して). As a result, person reference, demonstratives, and tense are recomputed from the reporter's viewpoint.³

彼かれは「明日あしたそちら（あなたのうち）へ行いきます」と言いいました。³
"He said, 'I will go to you (your place) tomorrow.'"

彼かれは今日きょうこちら（私わたしのうち）へ来くるといいました。³
"He said he would come to me (my place) today."

The deixis (speaker-centered words such as "here" and "there") shifts across the pair: そちら becomes こちら as the reporter's standpoint takes over, 行きます becomes 来る (go becomes come), and the polite ending becomes plain.

Quoting thoughts and feelings

と思う / と思った reports an unspoken thought, opinion, or impression. The thought clause takes plain form before と, just as in indirect speech.³⁴ Wasabi notes that with thought verbs like 思う, "you can only use the plain form or expressions for feelings like a volitional form in quotation."⁴

An inner thought can also be framed in 「」 when presented as a verbatim mental line.

「なかなかバスが来こないなあ」と思おもった。³
"I thought, 'The bus just won't come.'"

Other thought, resolve, and feeling verbs also take と, including 考える (consider), 感じる (feel), 決心する／決める (resolve, decide), and emotive verbs like 喜ぶ (be glad).³⁶ With a resolve verb, a volitional form can sit before と.

絶対ぜったいやってみようと決心けっしんした。³
"I resolved that I would definitely give it a try."

その時とき、今週こんしゅうにはそこから出でられるだろうと思おもった。³
"At that moment, I thought I would probably be able to get out of there this week."

Here だろう (plain conjecture) sits before と, and the deixis is the reporter's: 今週 and そこ are interpreted from where the reporter stands.

Good to know

Casual って is the spoken cousin

In casual spoken Japanese, って can substitute for と as the quoting particle. It can even close a sentence on its own when context supplies the reporting verb.⁴² と and って overlap in the quoting role, but って is conversational only; writing and formal speech keep と.⁴

This is only a preview. The colloquial quoting って has its own mechanics and is best treated on its own rather than expanded here.

Dropping だ after a noun or na-adjective

The most common slip is leaving out the plain copula だ before と after a noun or na-adjective. Writing the bare 彼は学生と言った for "he said he is a student" is wrong, because a nominal predicate cannot attach to と without だ. The rule that と "requires だ when used after nouns or な-Adjectives" supplies the fix.¹⁴ The corrected form, constructed here to isolate the contrast, restores だ.

彼かれは学生がくせいだと言いった。
"He said he is a student."

This だ is the same copula that surfaces in the attested 社長をバカだと思う, where the noun バカ carries it before と.³

Using polite form before と in an indirect quote

A second frequent error is carrying a polite ます／です ending into an indirect quote. The treatise marks ×明日行きますと言った as wrong and gives 明日行くと言った as correct. Indirect quotation converts the inner clause to plain form.³ If you want to keep the polite ending, the quote must instead be direct, inside 「」.

Forgetting と entirely

Beginners sometimes attach a quote straight to the reporting verb with no と. The particle is the structural hinge: it marks exactly where the quoted content ends and the reporting verb begins, whether or not 「」 are present.¹² Reading と as the close-quote handle, the point where the quote stops and the verb takes over, keeps that boundary clear.

See also

• Japanese Subordinate Clauses: How Embedded Clauses Work (Relative, Complement, Quotation, Embedded Question)
• Japanese ～という (to iu): Naming, Defining, and "the Fact That"
• Japanese Embedded Questions: How to Say "Whether or Not" with かどうか and か
• Japanese Complement Clauses with こと: The Abstract Nominalizer for Sentences-as-Nouns
• Japanese Complement Clauses with の: The Concrete Nominalizer for Perception and Feeling

References

Footnotes

1. Bunpro. "と (JLPT N5)." https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/356 (limitation: language-learning platform, not an academic or government reference). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

2. Tae Kim. "Making and performing actions on quotations." Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese. https://www.guidetojapanese.org/quotation.html (limitation: language-learning guide, no academic standing; cited for explanatory framing only, not for verbatim examples). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. 庭三郎（niwa saburoo）.「58. 引用」『現代日本語文法概説』. https://niwasaburoo.amebaownd.com/posts/5780513/ (descriptive-grammar treatise by a Japanese-language specialist; secondary reference, no formal academic imprint). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷

4. Wasabi. "Quotation と, という, and ように." https://wasabi-jpn.com/magazine/japanese-grammar/quotation/ (limitation: language-learning platform, not an academic or government reference). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

5. 日本語教師のはま. 「直接引用と間接引用の違いとは【と・ように】」. https://www.hamasensei.com/quotation/ (Japanese-language-teacher resource; pedagogy reference, no academic standing). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

6. IMABI. "The Particle と II: Citation." https://imabi.org/the-particle-%E3%81%A8-ii-citation/ (limitation: language-learning reference site, no formal academic standing). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. 日本語教師のはま. 「[引用とは] 令和2年度 日本語教育能力検定 試験Ⅰ問題3Cの解説」. https://www.hamasensei.com/2020-1-3c/ (Japanese-language-teacher resource prepared for the 日本語教育能力検定; pedagogy reference, no academic standing). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴