Indirect speech is used to report what someone has said without directly quoting that person.

Example:

Indirect speech begins with an introduction indicating who has spoken. The statement they made in direct speech becomes a "dass" subordinate clause in the indirect formulation or becomes a subordinate clause with no subordinating conjunction attached to the introduction.

Indirect speech often entails a change in perspective, which causes the pronouns to change.

Example:
Anna: "Ich fahre zu meiner Mutter."
Anna sagt, dass sie zu ihrer Mutter fährt.

The conjugated verb also has to change to fit the sentence.

Example:
Anna: "Ich fahre zu meiner Mutter."
Anna sagt, dass sie zu ihrer Mutter fährt.

Questions in indirect speech
You already know how to formulate indirect questions! "ob" clauses represent yes-no questions and object clauses are used in place of interrogative W words (question words).

Imperatives in indirect speech
Usually, the modal verb "sollen" is used to report imperative statements in indirect speech. (Sometimes "müssen" is used instead. For polite requests, "mögen" is another possibility.)