Say and tell in reported speech

Example: He told me that he was going to Athens.
He said that he expected to be in Athens for about six weeks.

Say (said) and tell (told) are the two verbs most commonly used to report statements in English. We can use either say or tell to do this.

The main difference is that when we use tell (told) we normally say who one is speaking to, we have to use it with a direct personal object. When we use say (said), we don’t normally indicate who is spoken to, or, if we do, we must put to before the object.

Example: “You don’t look too well,” I said.
“I take a short holiday,” I told her.

Note that when we are quoting direct speech, say is the more commonly used verb as say refers to any kind of speech. Tell is used only with the meaning of instruct or inform.