When to use ‘reported speech’

Sharon Philip

Let's say, you are having a conversation with your manager. He says a few things to you and now you are expected to share the message with the rest of the team. Instead of saying the exact words used by the manager, you’d paraphrase the message in your own words. Read on to master the art of converting a direct speech sentence to reported format. 

In direct speech, we give the message of the speaker in their own actual words without any change, to another person. 

He said, “I am happy with the results”.

The Indirect speech or the Reported Speech makes a few changes to the tense and words and drops the quotes (""). 

He said (that) he was happy with the results. 

Normally the tense in reported speech is one tense back in time from the tense in direct speech.

• Direct speech: She said, “I will rest my forehead on the table.”
• Reported speech: She said she would rest her forehead on the table.
• Direct speech: “I always drink coffee”, she said.
• Reported speech: She said (that) she always drank coffee.

In reported speech, we need to change the pronouns. E.g. “I” changes to “he” or “she”. “Your” changes to “my”.

• Direct speech: She told me “I want your book.”
• Reported speech: She told me (that) she wanted my book.

Note: We can choose if we want to use 'that' or not in English. I’ve put it in brackets () to show that it's optional. It's exactly the same if you use 'that' or if you don't use 'that'.)

Exercise: 

Mark the sentences as true statements (T) or false (F).

1. We use double quotes ("") in reported speech.

2. Present continuous tense (am reading) changes to Past continuous tense (was reading) in Reported Speech.

3. It is important to use "that" when converting a sentence from Direct to Indirect.

Change the following Direct sentences into Reported Speech.

4. She said, "You are an intelligent student."

She said____________________.

5. She said to Riya, "I have your book."

She told Riya__________________.

6. They said, "Is this your house?

They asked ________________.

ANSWERS

1. False 4. She said (that) I was an intelligent student.

2. True 5. She told Riya (that) she had her book.

3. False 6. They asked me if this was my house.