Reported Speech

Reported speech is when we tell someone what another person said. To do this, we can use direct speech or indirect 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 direct speech and If we report what somebody says without giving their exact words, it is called indirect speech.

Indirect speech is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions, or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in Direct speech.

Direct or quoted speech is spoken or written text that reports speech or thought in its original form phrased by the original speaker; in a narrative, it is usually enclosed in quotation marks, but could be enclosed in guillemet.

• 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 capitalized.

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

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

• She said," Can I use your diary?"

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

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

1. 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.

1. 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.

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

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

1. 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:

here	there
this	that
these	those
come	go

Time:

now	then
today	that day
tonight	that night
this week	that week
tomorrow	the following day/the next week
yesterday	the previous day

Summary:

• 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 direct speech.
• If we report what somebody says without giving their exact words, it is called indirect speech.
• The first letter of the reported sentence is always capitalized.