Reported Speech

Reported speech is of two types i.e direct speech and indirect speech. If we quote the actual words of the speaker, it is called the direct speech and If we report what somebody says without giving their exact words, it is called indirect speech.

• Direct speech: Ram said to Sita,"What are you doing?"
• Indirect speech: Ram asked Sita what she was doing.
• Direct speech: Aman said to me,"I will call you back this afternoon."
• Indirect speech: Aman told me that he would call me back that afternoon.

Punctuation and word order

1. We can use single inverted commas (‘’) or double inverted commas(" ") with suitable saying verbs to quote the actual words spoken by the speaker. The first letter of the reported sentence is always capital.

• She said," I'm leaving for home today."

2. If the 'speaker + reporting verb' come before the reported sentence, we generally put a comma before inverted commas.

• She said," Can I use your diary?"

3. The speaker can come before and after the reported sentence.

• During Dashain we bought a new car," Sumita said.

4. The speaker can come before and after the reporting verb if it is a noun. But, if the speaker is a pronoun, it normally comes before the reporting verb.

• "I am getting late," said Aman.
• "I am getting late," Aman said.
• "Where are you from?" she asked.

5. If the speaker interrupts the reported sentence, the punctuation system is:

• " Of course," said Manju," We will have the meeting."

Changes in tenses

1. If the reporting verb is in the past tense, the tense of the verb in the reported speech must be changed to one of the four forms of the past tense.

• She said,"She likes dancing."
• She said that she liked dancing.

2. In some cases, the simple past tense became unchanged.

• She said," Columbus discovered America in 1492."
• She said that Columbus discovered America in 1492.

3. The following changes need to be made to the modal auxiliary verbs:

• shall/will+ V¹- should/would + V¹
• will have- would have
• would/could/might/ought + V¹- no change
• must(necessity)- had to
• shall have- should have
• must ( duty/law/truth)- no change
• may/can+ V¹- might/could + V¹

Changes in time and place references:

Places:

Time: