Saturday, May 7, 2011

Direct vs Reported Speech - Tutorial

Direct Speech vs Reported Speech

Direct speech

¡ Direct speech repeats or quotes, WORD FOR WORD.

¡ We need to place these words between inverted commas (“……….”).

¡ We may be reporting what is being said NOW or telling someone later about the PREVIOUS conversation.

Reported speech

¡ Is usually used to indicate something that was said in the past. Hence, we need to change the tense of the words spoken.

¡ Use reporting verbs such as: say, tell, ask.

¡ Inverted commas ARE NOT USED.

Converting direct speech to reported speech

Things to consider

  1. Pronoun (unless you are talking about yourself)
  2. Change of place reference
  3. Change of time reference
  4. Tense
  5. The use of the reporting verbs

Change in pronoun

¡ In general, personal pronouns are changed to the third person singular or plural, except when speakers report their own words:

¡ I/ me/ my/ mine

¡ You/your/ yours

¡ He/him/her/hers

¡ We/ us/our/ours

Change in time and place reference

Direct Speech

Indirect/ Reported Speech

Today

that day

Yesterday

the day before

The day before yesterday

2 days before

Tomorrow

the next/ following day

The day after tomorrow

in 2 days’ time/ 2 days later

Next week/month/ year

The following week/ month/year

Last week/month/year

The previous week/month/year

Ago

Before

This (for time)

That

This/ that (adjectives)

the

Tense change (backshift)

ORIGINAL TENSES

NEW TENSES IN REPORTED SPEECH

Simple Present

She said, "It's cold."

Past Simple

She said it was cold.

Present continuous


She said, "I'm teaching English online."

Past continuous


She said she was teaching English online.

Present Perfect


She said, "I've been on the web since 1999."

Past Perfect


She said she had been on the web since 1999.

Present Perfect Continuous


She said, "I've been teaching English for seven years."

Past Perfect Continuous


She said she had been teaching English for seven years.

Past simple
She said, "I taught online yesterday."

Past perfect
She said she had taught online the day before.

Past continuous
She said, "I was teaching earlier."

Past perfect continuous
She said she had been teaching earlier.

Past perfect
She said, "The lesson had already started when he arrived."

Past perfect
NO CHANGE - She said the lesson had already started when he arrived.

Past perfect continuous
She said, "I'd already been teaching for five minutes."

Past perfect continuous
NO CHANGE - She said she'd already been teaching for five minutes.

Selecting your reporting verb

Each sentence is uttered with a specific function.

For example :

Pearl (to Alexa): Stop disturbing Max or I will beat you.

Reported speech : Pearl warned Alexa to stop disturbing Max or she would beat her.

Hopes, intentions, promises

¡ We need to use an appropriate reporting verb (ex: hope, threaten, guarantee, swear) followed by a THAT clause or a TO-infinitive

Orders

¡ When we want to report an order or request, we can use verbs like ‘tell or command, order, warn, ask, advise, invite, beg, teach, forbid’ with a TO clause.

Requests

¡ Request for objects are reported by using this pattern: ask for+ object

Suggestions

¡ Verbs to suggest (suggest, insist, recommend, demand, request propose) are usually reported with a that-clause and that/ should are optional.

Questions

¡ Normal word order is used in reported question, that is the subject comes before the verb, and it is not necessary to use do or did.

¡ Ex: Where does Satoru live?

¡ She asked him where Satoru lived

¡ This type of question is reported by using “ask+ if/whether” clause.

¡ Ex: Do you speak Japanese?

¡ He asked me if I spoke Japanese.

¡ Ex: Is it raining?

¡ He asked me if it was raining.

¡ This type of question is reported by using “ask+ question word+ clause” and it requires the normal word order with change in tenses.

¡ Ex: “What is your name?” Alan asked the young girl.

¡ Alan asked what her name was.

¡ Ex: “What time does the plane arrive?” Satoru asked.

¡ Satoru asked what time the plane arrived

Exceptions

¡ You do not need to change the tense if the reporting verb is in the present or if the original statement was about something that is still true.

¡ Ex: The students lamented that English is a difficult language to master.

¡ Modal verbs do not change in reported speech, might, could, would, should, ought to.

¡ Ex: My mother said, “it could be difficult to find a new apartment in this area.”

¡ Ex: My mother said that it could be difficult to find a new apartment in that area.

Apart from the above mentioned basic rules,

there are further aspects that you should keep

in mind, for example:

¡ main clauses connected with and / but

¡ tense of the introductory clause

¡ reported speech for difficult tenses

¡ exceptions for backshift

¡ requests with must, should, ought to and let’s

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