と言いう

Similar

• と言いっていた

  言いった states the act of saying as a fact on the record; 言いっていた relays what someone said as information you are passing on, so a report of somebody else's words takes 言いっていた even when they said it exactly once.

• って

  って is と言いう relaxed for speech, dropping 言いう outright — 来くるって reports what 来くると言いった does without naming the act of speaking at all, so って stays in conversation while と言いう is what a written report or a record of who said what uses.

Opposite

• と言いわれるvoice

  言いう puts the speaker in the driver's seat — 田中たなかさんは…と言いった names who spoke; passive 言いわれる puts the LISTENER there instead — 私わたしは…と言いわれた names who was told, and the speaker can go unnamed.

Lookalikes

• と思おもう

  Identical と, and only the verb after it says whose words these are — 言いう puts the content in someone's mouth and commits them to it, 思おもう keeps it inside the speaker's own head, where nobody said anything aloud.

• という

  Kanji 言いう reports an actual utterance someone spoke aloud; kana という names or packages content with no speech event behind it at all — 「はな」という店みせ only names it, and writing that same naming という in kanji is a spelling slip rather than a claim that someone spoke.

quoting exactly what was said — the words stand inside 「」, unchanged

reporting in your own words — a plain clause, a noun, or a na-adjective claimed as the content of what was said

asking what someone said — 何なんと言いいましたか asks for the exact words

と shortened to って in speech — the same report, spoken casually