He said he has read that book.
He said he had read that book.
Both of these sentences are grammatically correct.
It seems there is a nuance in meaning between them. So, what is the nuance?
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2Reported speech about a situation that is still true can be in either the past or the present tense; in this case it makes no difference. If what the person said in the past may no longer be true, there is a potential difference in meaning. Compare this– Kate BuntingCommented Mar 29, 2022 at 15:23
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1 Answer
I've never come across the He said he has read the book kind of sentence. If you want to use Indirect Speech, I suggest you use the second sentence. The past tense always matches their counterparts (past continuous, past perfect, past perfect continuous, would), so does the present tense (present continuous, present perfect, present perfect continuous, will). This first clause of the first sentence He said is the simple past tense and the second clause, he has read, is the present perfect tense; therefore, the sentence is uncoordinated. However, the second sentence, He said (which is the simple past tense) and he had read that (the past perfect tense), matches each other.
I'm pretty sure most native speakers would let this slide if you ever said the former.
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It is common to see the simple past is followed by the present perfect in reported speech. Are you really sure most native speakers would consider my first example unacceptable? Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 17:55
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I'm saying that they would understand what you say because both the meanings of the sentences are the same, despite the tense. And maybe it's common as you said but I recently saw different cases like Copernicus stated that the earth orbits the sun, meaning that it is a general fact that the earth orbits the sun even though the statement was made a long time ago. Or He has said he likes apples.– ClanskyCommented Mar 29, 2022 at 18:53