Reported Speech

Reported Speech

Reported Statement

When do we use reported speech? Sometimes someone says a sentence, for example "I'm going to the cinema tonight". Later, maybe we want to tell someone else what the first person said. Here's how it works:

We use a reporting verb like 'say' or 'tell'. If this verb is in the present tense, it's easy. We just put 'she says' and then the sentence:

Direct speech: I like ice cream.
Reported speech: She says she likes ice cream.

We don't need to change the tense, though probably we do need to change the ‘person' from 'I' to 'she', for example. We also may need to change words like 'my' and 'your'.

On the other hand, if the reporting verb is in the past tense, then usually we change the tenses in the reported speech:

Direct speech: I like ice cream.
Reported speech: She said she liked ice cream.

Tense

Present simple
Present continuous
Past simple

Direct Speech
* I like ice cream”
* I am living in London”
* I bought a car”

Reported Speech
* She said (that) she liked ice cream.
* She said she was living in London.
* She said she had bought a car OR She said she bought a car.


Occasionally, we don't need to change the present tense into the past if the information in direct speech is still true (but this is only for things which are general facts, and even then usually we like to change the tense):

Direct speech: The sky is blue.
Reported speech: She said that the sky is/was blue.


Reported Question

So now you have no problem with making reported speech from positive and negative sentences. But how about questions?

Direct speech: Where do you live?

How can we make the reported speech here? In fact, it's not so different from reported statements. The tense changes are the same, and we keep the question word. The very important thing though is that, once we tell the question to someone else, it isn't a question any more. So we need to change the grammar to a normal positive sentence :

Reported speech: She asked me where I lived.

Do you see how I made it? The direct question is in the present simple tense. We make a present simple question with 'do' or 'does' so I need to take that away. Then I need to change the verb to the past simple. Another example:

Direct speech: Where is Julie?
 Reported speech: She asked me where Julie was.

The direct question is the present simple of 'be'. We make the question form of the present simple of be by inverting (changing the position of)the subject and verb. So, we need to change them back before putting the verb into the past simple. Here are some more examples:

Direct Question

* Where is the Post Office, please?
* What are you doing?
* Who was that fantastic man?

Reported Question

* She asked me where the Post Office was.
* She asked me what I was doing.
* She asked me who that fantastic man had been.

So much for 'wh' questions. But, what if you need to report a 'yes / no' question? We don't have any question words to help us. Instead, we use 'if':

Direct speech: Do you like chocolate?
Reported speech: She asked me if I liked chocolate.



Reported Speech (Imperatives)

In order to change the imperative sentences into direct or indirect speech, the imperative mood has to be changed to infinitive mood. In addition the word said is replaced by advise, command, request, plead, admonish, warn, suggest, forgive, threaten, forbid, solicit, propose, exhort, prompt, persuade, instruct, dictate and so on.

Examples:

* He said to his peon, “shut the door” He ordered his peon to shut the door 

* The teacher, “obey your parents”
The teacher advised the students to obey their parents 

* My friend said to me, “keep trying you will win”
My friend encouraged me to keep trying so that I would win 

* Dilip said to me, “let us go for shopping”
Dilip proposed to me that we should go for shopping