General English Level 4 V 3

UNIT 01 The Media TOPIC 05 This is what they said

	LANGUAGE FOCUS 02 Reported speech
	In this activity you will learn about reported speech.

1. Direct Speech

Listen to direct speech.

Roll your mouse over the coloured words to find out about the tenses in direct speech..

Find out more about direct speech.

2. Indirect or reported speech

Direct speech is when we quote the speaker's words. When we report what people said we call this indirect or reported speech . Usually, the tense of the verbs in direct speech "moves back" one tense in reported speech. We also use this report structure when we report what someone thought.

Here, the Mayor's words are reported. Roll your mouse over the coloured words to see the tenses in indirect or reported speech.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech
Present Simple "I understand the residents' concerns," the Mayor said.	Past Simple The Mayor said he understood the residents' concerns.
Present Continuous "We are studying the proposal," Norma Baker said.	Past Continuous Norma Baker said that they were studying the proposal.
Will for future "I will be happy to attend the meeting," he said.	Would He said he would be happy to attend the meeting.
Can "People can't park their cars anywhere," she said.	Could She said people couldn't park their cars anywhere.

3. Time and place references

Sometimes we have to change time and place words to make the reported sentence make sense. How we change them depends on when and where we are as we speak. Here are some changes that we might make when we use reported speech.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech
today	that day
tonight	that night
tomorrow	the following day, the day after, the next day
this morning	that morning
here	there
now	then, at that moment

Examples

"I'll meet you tomorrow night ," she said.
She said she would meet him tonight . (You are speaking the day after she said this.)

"I'll meet you tomorrow night, " she said.
She said she would meet him the following night . (You are speaking a week after she said this.)

"We are looking at the problem now ," he said.
He said they were looking at the problem at that moment.

4. Other Changes

The pronouns change in reported speech depending on who is reporting.
"I'll help you with your homework" Anne said to Susan.
I said I would help her with her homework. (Anne to Stacey)
Anne said she would help me with my homework. (Susan to Stacey)

The determiners this, that, these, those may change to the.
" This computer isn't working," he said.
He said that the computer wasn't working.

Examples

"I' ll meet you here next Friday," Mary said.
Mary said she would meet me there the following Friday.

"These questions are really hard to understand," Joe said.
Joe said the questions were really hard to understand.

"We' re playing basketball tomorrow at 6pm," said Jane.
Jane said they were playing basketball the next day at 6pm.

Now go to 03 WRITING Reported speech.