How Do You Quote?

[Outkast]

「...」と言いました is for stating what has been said. But how do you indicate that a specific person said something instead of leaving the speaker anonymous?

For instance, [The sheep said, "Bah bah bah."]

Thanks for all help!

[annie]

「the quote」Person's name が言った．
there are instances where you can use は rather than が

But, I think you use 鳴く for animals

[Outkast]

I have been taught... Thank you!

[Elfunko]

誰か　（は・が）　何何何ってゆってた。

ゆうーspoken form of いう

Theres conversational quotations. Annie, can you give a few examples of ga vs ha in quotations? Explain the differences in meaning? Personally off the top of my I can't really think of where to begin.

If I were telling a story, I would use the persons name and "ha". If I wanted to emphasise one persons line I think I would use "ga". What do you think?

[Outkast]

Now I'm more curious... I always have to write stories (as in, "story-tale" stories) for class, and the 「ブラブラブラ。」彼が言いました。 format seems too repetitious, especially after the fifty-seventh dialogue quote.

I tried looking at my Japanese copy of the novel "Saving Private Ryan" for examples, but they're all in the informal style where just the actual dialogue is there, and that's it (no mention of speaker afterward.)

[dmr214]

I think in everyday casual speech you can use 　「何か」って　as a shortened version of と言いました。

But I would think for written in Japanese you wouldn't say something like we do in English books where we add " "....", he said." You would just say it because dialog in a book is just that, dialog and they are letting you know it's dialog by using 「」　quotation markers.

Maybe someone can clear this up?

[Outkast]

Some more food for thought, though I definitely want to hear more about literary quoting...

[dmr214]

I actually asked one of my Japanese friends here in Tokyo about quoting in books in Japanese.

Yes they use the form to iimasu just like we use he said, she said etc...

The difference is the Japanese tend to use it in conjunction with another action, but you will often see in books to iimasu/to iu/tte

[Outkast]

Gotcha. Thanks for the help!