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General
English Level 5 V 3
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UNIT 04 Crime and
punishment TOPIC 03 She's sorry now
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LANGUAGE FOCUS 03 Reported
speech
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In this activity you will revise how to use reported
speech.
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Reported speech is when we report indirectly what
people said. The tense of the verbs in direct speech usually "moves
back" one tense in reported speech.
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Direct Speech
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Reported Speech
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Present Simple
"I understand your question perfectly," the lawyer
said.
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Past Simple
The lawyer said he understood the question perfectly.
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Present Continuous
"We are looking for the attacker," the policeman said.
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Past Continuous
The policeman said that they were looking for the attacker.
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Past Simple
"She breached security," David said.
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Past perfect
He said that she had breached security.
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Present Perfect
"Until now, my client has been a model citizen," her
lawyer said.
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Past Perfect
Her lawyer said that until now she had been a model citizen.
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Past Continuous
"She was looking suspicious when I came into the room,"
he said.
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Past Perfect Continuous
He said that she had been looking suspicious when he had come
into the room.
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Future using "will"
"I will be happy to help you," she said.
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Would
She said she would be happy to help us.
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Can
"People can't understand why she did it," she said.
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Could
She said people couldn't understand why she did it.
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Time and place references
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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.
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Direct speech
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Reported speech
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today
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that day
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tonight
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that night
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tomorrow
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the following day, the day after,
the next day
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this morning
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that morning
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here
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there
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now, then
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at that moment
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Examples
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"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.
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Other changes
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The
pronouns
change in reported speech
depending on
who
is reporting.
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Examples
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"I'll help
you
with
your
homework"
Anne said. (Anne 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)
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The determiners
this, that, these, those
may
change to
the
.
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Example
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"
This
computer isn't working," he said.
He said that
the
computer
wasn't working.
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