General
We use Reported Speech or Indirect Speech to report someone's words. That means, we want to tell words that another person once said.
When we need to report someone's words in writing we do not need to use quotation marks.
One of the most difficult rules about reported speech is sequence of tenses. When we report someone's words we usually refer to the past. That is why we need to change tenses according to the context.
Moreover, we need to change time and place words.
This grammar topic causes many troubles when students start learning it. Reported Speech may seem at first rather complicated indeed. But everything you need to get it right - just to remember simple rules.
Reported Speech. Statements
To report someone's words we usually use two verbs — say and tell. We simply put them in the beginning of the sentence after the pronoun. Remember that we:
say something to someone (she said to me)
tell someone something (she told me)
Then we may place 'that' between this construction and the reported idea. But it's optional. We may build a reported statement without 'that'.
She (he, they) + says + that + reported idea
Helen: "We need to buy a car". — Direct Speech
She says (that) we need to buy a car. — Indirect Speech
As we mentioned above, we usually report words in the past. This requires changes of tenses according to the context.
Reported Speech. Sequence of tenses
First of all we transfer our reporting verbs into the past:
say 👉 said
tell 👉 told
After that we need to convert the whole sentence.
Helen: "I don't like oranges." — Direct Speech
Helen said to me (that) she didn't like oranges. — Indirect Speech.
Look at these examples attentively. We changed the Present Simple Tense used in the direct speech to the Past Simple in the indirect speech.
This is the main logic of sequence of tenses — to change tenses accordingly. Here is a useful scheme of how we convert tenses 👇
Present Simple 👉 Past Simple
Present Continuous 👉 Past Continuous
Present Perfect Simple 👉 Past Perfect Simple
Present Perfect Continuous 👉 Past Perfect Continuous
* * *
Past Simple 👉 Past Perfect
Past Continuous 👉 Past Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect 👉 NO CHANGE
Past Perfect Continuous 👉 NO CHANGE
* * *
Future Simple 👉 Future-in-the-Past
Future Perfect 👉 Future-in-the-Past Perfect
Future-in-the-Past 👉 NO CHANGE
Look at the examples below 👇
Helen: "I'm going to the park.' 👉 Helen told me (that) she was going to the park.
Helen: "I have read a book." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had read a book.
Helen: "I have been learning English for two years." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had been learning English for two years."
* * *
Helen: "I came from Canada." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had come from Canada.
Helen: "I was sleeping." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had been sleeping.
Helen: "I had read a book." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had read a book.
Helen: "I had been learning English for two years." 👉 Helen told me (that) she had been learning English for two years."
* * *
Helen: "I will go to the park." 👉 Helen told me (that) she would go to the park.
Helen: "I would go to the park, but ..." 👉 Helen told me (that) she would go to the park, but ...
Another scheme to remember is how we convert time and place words in reported speech. So, here we go 👇
now 👉 then
today 👉 that day
tomorrow 👉 the following day, the next day
yeterday 👉 the day before, the previous day
this week 👉 that week
next week 👉 the following week
last week 👉 the week before, the previous week
ago 👉 before, previously
tonight 👉 that night
* * *
here 👉 there
this 👉 that
Now take a look at these examples👇
Helen: "I will go to the park tomorrow." 👉 Helen told me (that) she would go to the park the next day.
Helen: "Come here, please." 👉 Helen asked me to come there.
So, these are the main rules of using reported speech. But you should also know how to report questions, requests, orders and modal verbs.