Reported Speech

By: Sean Savoie

Reported speech is also called indirect speech. Its purpose is to inform somebody about what another person has said. Of course, it is possible to quote somebody directly and even imitate that person's voice or manner. But whether in a family, a company, or society, one must report the speech of others fairly often, and so developing this language skill is important.

Because we have taken a careful look at past tense verbs over the last few articles, now is an excellent time to begin practicing indirect speech. The grammar rules for doing this are somewhat basic, but learning to do it well does take practice. When you report speech, verb tenses and pronouns need to be changed, which, especially for speakers of Chinese, can be a bit frustrating and confusing in the beginning. The good news, however, is that a student of English can improve shifting verb tenses while gaining a very important communication skill. So let's begin.

The basic rules about tenses: verb tenses need to shift back in time. The simple present becomes the simple past. The present continuous becomes the past continuous. The simple past becomes the past perfect. The past continuous becomes the past perfect continuous. The future tenses can make use of the word "would". Also, the word "can" changes into "could". The past perfect cannot be changed because it is already the most past tense in English, so it stays the same. Modal auxiliaries, such as could, would, should, had better, may, might, and ought to, etc...., also stay the same because changing them will often alter their meaning and involve the unreal conditional verb tense. The word "must", when it means "need to", changes to "had to".

Time expressions change in the following ways: tomorrow… the next day or the following day; today… that day; yesterday… the day before or the previous day; last week, month, year, time… the previous week, month, year, time; next week, month, year, time… the following week, month, year, time; this….that; now… then; these… those; yet… by that time.

OK. Now that you are completely confused, we should take a look at some examples to understand how to use reported speech. Each of the following sentences is first directly quoted and then indirectly quoted as reported speech.

Examples:

"I exercise, study English, and work a part-time job during the daytime," said Bill.

Bill said that he exercised, studied English, and worked a full time job during the daytime.

"I think I am going to have a good day tomorrow," said Jill.

Jill said that she thought she was going to have a good day the following day.

"My sister is enjoying her new work, and she will stay with the company for a long time," said Larry.

Larry said that his sister was enjoying her new work, and that she would stay with the company for a long time.

"Paula went to the store and got plenty of groceries," said Julie.

Julie said that Paula had gone to the store and gotten plenty of groceries.

"I gave you a call right after I got home from vacation last week," said Kerry.

Kerry said that she had given you a call right after she had gotten home from vacation the week before.

"Tomorrow I will see my friend right after I finish breakfast," said Sam

Sam said that he would see his friend the next day right after he finished breakfast.

"The past tense was very difficult for me because I had not studied verb tenses yet," said Mary.

Mary said that the past tense had been very difficult for her because she had not studied verb tenses by that time.

"I was talking to my friend on the phone when three family members stopped by my house," said Rick.

Rick said that he had been talking to his friend on the phone when three family members had stopped by his house.

It should be easier now to see how reported speech functions in daily conversation. All of the above examples are statements, not questions. Questions involve the use of noun clauses, and so we will continue with reported speech next week using questions. For homework, yes homework, see if you can figure out how to accurately report the direct quotations below. The correct answers will be published in the next issue of the New York Community Times.

"I will give you a call tomorrow if my cell phone is working," said Ian.

"Later today I am having a party, and I hope you can come," said Irene.

"My boss would send you some e-mail, but his computer crashed yesterday," said Steve.

"We wanted to buy the product and ask many questions about services," said Jennifer.

"Many of my friends had called me by the time I got home," said Dave.