Le discours rapporté à la radio : aurait déclaré…

Unité CO-13 · campagne 8 · qui affirme quoi, et avec quelle prudence.

B2 listening loves one question above all: is this information certain, or merely reported? French radio marks the difference grammatically, and the markers fly past in half a second.

Three levels of commitment to track:

1. The journalistic conditional = not confirmed. Le groupe aurait choisi la Slovaquie, l'accord aurait été signé dans la nuit. The conditional does not mean "would" here; it means we are passing this on without vouching for it. Russian has no grammatical equivalent — the nearest gloss is «якобы» / «по имеющимся данным» baked into the verb.
2. Source markers hand responsibility over. Selon les syndicats…, d'après nos informations…, l'agence rapporte que… — whatever follows belongs to the source, not the station. If the question asks what the radio asserts, this material is out.
3. Direct quotation = the only rock-solid layer. La maire a déclaré : « Nous rouvrirons la piscine avant l'été. » What is certain is that she said it — not that the pool will open.

Bonus reflex: when a correspondent adds history (un accord annoncé de la même manière en mars ne s'était jamais concrétisé), that is an instruction to distrust the announcement. The items below mix confirmed statements, conditionals and duelling sources; every question is about who committed to what.

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