💭 Reported Speech in Depth

Tense backshift, time and place changes, and reporting questions, commands and requests. · about 15 minutes

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Introduction

What is it? In reported speech you tell what someone said without quoting them. After a past reporting verb the tense moves back (backshift), pronouns change to fit who is reporting, and time and place words change (today -> that day, here -> there). Questions, commands and requests are reported with their own patterns.

Why does it matter? Reported speech is used in news reports, summaries, essays and everyday retelling: "She said that she was tired." "He asked me where I lived." "They told us to wait."

Where do we use it? News reporting, messages passed on, minutes of meetings, and story summaries.

In this lesson you will:

Apply tense, pronoun and time/place changes in reported statements
Report questions with if/whether or a question word in statement order
Report commands and requests with tell/ask + to

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