what was she saying vs what she was saying

Both phrases are correct, but they are used in different contexts. 'What was she saying' is a complete question where 'what' is the subject, 'was' is the auxiliary verb, and 'she saying' is the object. 'What she was saying' is a noun clause that can be used as a subject or object in a sentence.

Last updated: March 31, 2024 • 10418 views

what was she saying

This phrase is correct and commonly used in English.

This phrase is used as a complete question to inquire about something that someone was saying in the past.

Examples:

What was she saying when you walked in?
I didn't catch what she was saying during the meeting.

Show examples from the web [+]

what you say? I said, what was she saying about me?
What was she saying about you?
When you saw Drew with the dolls, what was she saying?
What was she saying about him?
Tempura or something, and what was she saying?
What was she saying?
What was she saying?
What was she saying?
What was she saying?

Alternatives:

What did she say?
What was she talking about?
What was she discussing?
What was she mentioning?
What was she expressing?

what she was saying

This phrase is correct and commonly used in English.

This phrase is a noun clause that can function as the subject or object in a sentence, providing information about what someone was saying.

Examples:

I understood what she was saying.
What she was saying made sense to me.
He ignored what she was saying.
The teacher asked about what she was saying.
I couldn't hear what she was saying.

Show examples from the web [+]

So one evening he made up his mind to hear what she was saying.
You see, wayne, that's exactly the opposite Of what she was saying about thinking before you speak.
I couldn't make out what she was saying, anyway.
I had no idea what she was saying to start with.
Maybe that isn't what she was saying.
I didn't really hear very much of what she was saying.
I didn't understand how she was acting, what she was saying.
What if she had no idea of what she was saying?
I got the camera angle wrong. That one is just amateur stuff, but what she was saying, as you could make out, was about neurons, with her hands were like that, and she was saying neurons communicate.
She took our order, and then went to the couple in the booth next to us, and she lowered her voice so much I had to really strain to hear what she was saying.
l didn't hear what she was saying.
She knew what she was saying.
Maybe she didn't know what she was saying.
Do you believe what she was saying?
She didn't know what she was saying.
I tried to grasp what she was saying.
I could barely understand what she was saying.
I mean, nobody understood what she was saying.
I didn't even hear what she was saying.
But something about what she was saying bothered me.

Alternatives:

Her words
Her speech
Her message
Her communication
Her dialogue

What Our Customers Are Saying

Our customers love us! We have an average rating of 4.79 stars based on 283,125 votes.
Also check out our 2,100+ reviews on TrustPilot (4.9).

"Thank you!"
Sachi Nakama July 2024
"I have literally been through chat, PI, claude, bard and bing and I got conflicting answers! Thank you! Human intelligence reigns!"
Retha July 2024
"Faster than AI"
CYNTHIA December 2023
"This was very helpful and I personally think this site is the best."
Kaden October 2023
"It was extremely thorough and very helpful!"
imperialelisa October 2023
"7 years without any disappointment. Always 100% satisfied. You guys are the best in the world at what you do. Thank you so much :)"
Zubair Alam October 2023
"In a world of text messages and online communication, this is great to have as a live tool. Thank you."
Selena October 2023
"Without textranch I would be stuck!"
宏祐 October 2023
"Accuracy and fast response. Personal comments from editor. Thank you."
Clh September 2023
"I wasn't aware of this service, it's fascinating and more reliable than standard IA tools available on the internet"
Arturo September 2023
"The fact that you can get reliable fast feedback on your texts."
Vinicius Antonio August 2023
"you guys are better than grammarly i'm being honest here"
ordinary July 2023
"OMG! This is really good than any other text correction tools I've used so far. Highly recommend this."
Vehan July 2023
"Very fast and accurate. thank you."
mojtaba July 2023
"I love this app because it's help to writing skills all of students ♥️"
Tarisini July 2023
"This was exactly the mistake I was looking for, the wording dind´t sound right at first. Better than grammarly!"
Ente July 2023
"The immediate help that I received was reassuring and very satisfactory. Thanks."
priiiyanshuu July 2023
"this helps A LOT for my studies."
kathnunez02 June 2023
"Woow!! I would never have expected such precision! Thank you soooo much!!"
Berta June 2023
"Real Time Editor and not AI. Many Thanks."
Priya June 2023
"The very first thing excites me about Textranch is how much your editors care."
sepideh June 2023
"The fact that texts are checked by human editors rather than by AI, etc. I appreciate this!"
Анна June 2023
"Feel welcome, immediate response, high quality feedback"
martin.roy June 2023
"This is the best app that I have ever seen"
Burulai May 2023

what was she saying vs what she was saying