Reported Speech: Statements

Reported Speech:

Statements​

​Inter 3

P.E. ​

Reported Statements​

​When do we use reported speech? Sometimes someone says a sentence, for example "I'm going to the cinema tonight". Later, maybe we want to tell someone else what the first person said.

We use a 'reporting verb' like 'say' or 'tell'.Happy teaching!

• Direct speech: I like ice cream.

• Reported speech: She says (that) she likes ice cream.

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​If this verb is in the present tense, it's easy. We just put 'she says' and then the sentence:

We don't need to change the tense, though probably we do need to change the 'person' from 'I' to 'she', for example. We also may need to change words like 'my' and 'your'.

To transfer a positive or a negative sentence into reported speech, we need two parts:

• the main part ("she says (that)", "he claims (that)", "they tell/told us (that)"),

• the dependent part which is transformed direct speech.

​The word that is optional: you can keep it or leave it out. Both options are possible.

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Example

Martin says that he wants to take a break.

Martin says he wants to take a break.

You should also be careful with time indicators (today, now, next week etc.) not to lose the idea of the original direct statement.

Subject | Subject

Some text here about the topic of discussion

Backshifting of tenses

Linda: "I am tired." Linda says she is tired.

Morris: "I've got work to do." Morris says he's got work to do.

Bella and Thomas: "We are going to the party." Bella and Thomas say they are going to the party.

​Examples

​In English, there's one special thing about the reported speech. The tense in the main part of the sentence (He said that...) affects the tense in the dependent part.

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If the main part is in the present tense, we don't have to change the tense. The dependent part remains in its initial tense.

However, if the main part is in the past tense (she said that..., he told us that...), we do the "backshifting" of the tense in the dependent part.

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Look at the table below. Backshifting helps us balance two parts of the sentence by shifting the dependant part one tense back to the past.