We used reported speech when we want to repeat what someone had previously said. In reported speech we need to use the past tense from of the verb. In direct speech the present tense is used. As you can see, in the above sentence 'am' changes to 'was' when we use reported speech.
Reported Questions
So now you have no problem
with making reported speech from positive and negative sentences. But how about
questions?
- Direct speech: "Where do you
live?"
How can
we make the reported speech here?
In fact, it's not so different from reported statements. The tense changes are the same, and we keep the question word. The very important thing though is that, once we tell the question to someone else, it isn't a question any more. So we need to change the grammar to a normal positive sentence. Confusing? Sorry, maybe this example will help:
In fact, it's not so different from reported statements. The tense changes are the same, and we keep the question word. The very important thing though is that, once we tell the question to someone else, it isn't a question any more. So we need to change the grammar to a normal positive sentence. Confusing? Sorry, maybe this example will help:
- Direct speech: "Where do you
live?"
- Reported speech: She asked me
where I lived.
Do you
see how I made it? The direct question is in the present simple tense. We make
a present simple question with 'do' or 'does' so I need to take that away. Then
I need to change the verb to the past simple.
Another example:
Another example:
- Direct speech: "where is
Julie?"
- Reported speech: She asked me
where Julie was.
The
direct question is the present simple of 'be'. We make the question form of the
present simple of be by inverting (changing the position of)the subject and
verb. So, we need to change them back before putting the verb into the past
simple.
Reported Requests
There's more! What if
someone asks you to do something (in a polite way)? For example:
- Direct speech: "Close the
window, please"
- Or: "Could you close the
window please?"
- Or: "Would you mind closing
the window please?"
All of these requests mean
the same thing, so we don't need to report every word when we tell another
person about it. We simply use 'ask me + to + infinitive':
- Reported speech: She asked me to
close the window.
Reported Orders
And finally, how about if
someone doesn't ask so politely? We can call this an 'order' in English, when
someone tells you very directly to do something. For example:
- Direct speech: "Sit
down!"
In fact, we make this into
reported speech in the same way as a request. We just use 'tell' instead of
'ask':
- Reported speech: She told me to
sit down.
REFERENCE:
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