Lesson Eleven

When someone says something, how do you describe it to another person? This lesson will focus on reported speech, or you can call it "indirect speech."

Direct speech: "This meat smells bad," said Tom.

Indirect Speech: Tom said that the meat smelled bad.

Notice that the spoken words are in quotation marks:

"This meat smells bad."

The verb "smells" is in the present tense.

It changes to "smelled" — the past tense.

The chart below shows the sequence of tenses and how verbs change when using indirect speech:

 Practice. Write your answers on a piece of paper. Then look below for the correct verb choices.

1. "I will be ready by 10:00" She said that she ______ be ready by 10:00.
2. "The mail isn’t here yet."  He said that the mail _______here yet.
3. "They have lived here 10 years."   Bill said they ________ here 10 years.
4. "Is it going to rain today?" She asked if it _____________ to rain today.
5. "Joe knows a lot of people." He said that Joe ________ a lot of people.
6. "Can you play the guitar?" She asked me if I _________ play the guitar.

Answers: 1. would; 2. wasn’t; 3. had lived; 4. was going; 5. knew; 6. could

Indirect speech for a question usually uses "if" or "whether" in the sentence. Notice that #4 and #6 are not written with a question mark. That’s because the speaker is describing the question, not asking it.