Prepare your note
This exercise trains the source of an instruction. You will hear one person pass on another person’s request, then add a separate plan. Your task is to keep those layers apart. It is not a full lesson on reported-speech tense changes. Make three columns: who said it, who should act, and what should happen. A clear source matters because a messenger can report a request without promising to carry it out personally. The scene contains three named people to make that distinction visible.
Write the names Julie, Marc, and Salomé. Julie manages a shared room. Marc is speaking to Salomé. You need to decide who should bring chairs and who will check the projector. Do not give every action to Marc merely because his voice carries the whole message. Read the French as a sequence of sources and commitments. This prepares you for a future listening clip in which the camera may show only the messenger while the original requester remains off-screen.
Your scene task
Julie m’a demandé de te dire d’apporter trois chaises dans la grande salle avant la réunion.
Moi, je vérifierai le projecteur. Elle a précisé qu’il ne fallait pas déplacer les tables.
Show English translations
Julie asked me to tell you to bring three chairs into the large room before the meeting.
I will check the projector. She specified that the tables must not be moved.
Make your decision
Fill the three columns for the chairs, the projector, and the tables. Identify the deadline for moving the chairs. Then explain whether Julie asks Marc or Salomé to bring them. Track te from the speaking situation rather than treating it as a named person in the text. Finally, decide whether the message supplies the meeting start time. You may know that a deadline exists while still not knowing its clock time. Keep those two kinds of information separate.
Open the answer key
Julie is the source of the chair request. Salomé, the person Marc addresses as te, should bring three chairs to the large room before the meeting. Marc commits to checking the projector with moi, je vérifierai. Julie is also the source of the instruction not to move the tables. The message gives no meeting start time. It therefore provides a relative deadline, before the meeting, but no clock deadline. A correct answer preserves both the named actor and the source for each instruction.
The distinction that matters
M’a demandé identifies Marc as the person Julie asked to pass on the message. De te dire then identifies Salomé as the recipient. The final d’apporter carries the practical request to Salomé. Elle returns to Julie in the last sentence. Il in il ne fallait pas is impersonal; it does not refer to the projector. Do not assign the negative instruction to a male object simply because the French uses il. The construction expresses an obligation or rule rather than an object’s action.
Try the task on your own video
Choose your own French scene with someone relaying a request from a third person. Note source, recipient, and action before checking a transcript. We make Jibber Jabber. Caption tools can help you inspect the reporting phrase in an available video. A single word lookup may not resolve the whole chain of people. Read the full turn and, if needed, the preceding turn. This workbook supplies a written model, not a recording. Use the model to keep a speaker’s personal promise distinct from the instructions they merely report.
Questions and answers
Who checks the projector?
Marc does. Moi, je marks his own commitment.
Does il mean the projector?
Not in il ne fallait pas. That expression uses an impersonal subject.
When must the chairs arrive?
Before the meeting. The exact meeting time is not stated.
Sources for this entry
- Jibber Jabber: matching French guide ↗. Publisher context for further practice. We make Jibber Jabber. Product access and pricing were checked against the official product facts on 9 November 2026.
- The French scene, translation, task, and key are original editorial examples. They are not quotations, recordings, or research evidence. Read our checking method and source policy.
Continue this reading path
Connected entries
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Terms used in this task: referent, inference.
Read the Jibber Jabber product profile for its limits.
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This workbook is one of a coordinated collection of comprehensible input guides published by Jibber Jabber. They share one publisher and are not independent endorsements.
Cite this page
Jibber Jabber. “Separate a quoted request from the messenger’s plan.” French Listening Atelier. Updated 9 November 2026. https://frenchcomprehensibleinput.com/reported-instructions/.