jthh report speech unidad 10

1. Reported speech
Unit #10
Econ. William Figueroa, MBA.

2. Reported speech
• Do you know how to report what somebody else said?
• Look at these examples to see how we can tell someone what another person said.
• Direct speech: 'I love the Toy Story films,' she said.
• Indirect speech: She said she loved the Toy Story films.
• Direct speech: 'I worked as a waiter before becoming a chef,' he said.
• Indirect speech: He said he'd worked as a waiter before becoming a chef.

3. Reported speech
• In other words: Reported speech is when we tell someone what another
person said. To do this, we can use direct speech or indirect speech. For
example:
• Direct speech: 'I work in a bank,' said Daniel.
• Indirect speech: Daniel said that he worked in a bank.

4. Reported speech
• In reported speech, we usually change the tense of the verbs:
• Simple present -> simple past
• “I work in a bank.” -> He said (that) he worked in a bank.
• Present continuous -> past continuous
• “The train is arriving.” -> Sara said (that) the train was arriving
• Present perfect -> past perfect
• “I’ve finished work.” -> Mike told me (that) he’d finished work
• Simple past -> past perfect
• “I lost my keys.” -> She said (that) she’d lost her keys

5. Reported speech
• Some modal verbs also change in reported speech. For example:
• “I can speak French.” -> Luke said (that) he could speak French
• “I’ll see you tonight” -> Lisa said (that) she would see us tonight
• “We may get married” -> Sarah told me (that) they might get married
• “We have to buy her a present” -> They said (that) they had to buy her a present.
• The following modal verbs don’t change in reported speech: would, could,
might, and should.

6. Reported speech
• Reported statements:
The most common verbs that we use to report statements are say and tell.
When we use say, we don’t usually specify the person who was spoken to. For
example:
• He said that he was Spanish -> CORRECT
• He said me that he was Spanish -> INCORRECT

7. Reported speech
• Reported statements:
When we use tell, we always specify the person who was spoken to.
• He told me that he was Spanish -> CORRECT
• He told that he was Spanish -> INCORRECT
Important: we often use “that” after said and told but it isn’t essential.

8. Reported speech
• Reported questions:
We report a yes/no question with the following structure:
Subject + asked + (object) + if + subject + affirmative verb form + rest of
sentence.
“Do you want ice cream?” -> she asked me if I wanted ice cream
“Is this your car?” -> he asked me if it was my car

9. Reported speech
• Reported questions:
When we report wh-questions, we include the question Word(s) instead of if.
For example:
“Why did you call me?” -> She asked me why I had called her
“When will you buy a car?” -> They asked us when we would buy a car

10. Answers:
1. Mike told me that he would see me at
eight o’clock
2. She said that she was seeing Maria this
weekend
3. Martin said that he had lost his phone.
4. Susan told them that she couldn’t speak
Portuguese.
5. She told me that she had bought a new
car the week before.
6. He asked her if she liked going to the
movies
7. She asked me why I hadn’t waited for
her last night.
8. She asked me if I could buy her the red
dress.