Reported Speech: Rules, Education & Examples

You are on a student exchange in England and your host mother asks what you learned at school today. You can say that in English like this:

In this sentence you use the indirect speech. But what exactly is indirect speech and how is it formed in English?

Reported Speech & Direct Speech – difference

In the Ddirectly Spitch, i.e. direct speech you quote the exact words of the respective person. It is important here that when playing the quotation marks be used. Here some examples:

From the example sentences you can see that the rendered sentence is always highlighted in quotation marks. Since both sentences in the past stand, the (speech) accompanying sentence (he said and she asked) in the Simple Past.

It is of course also possible to reflect what a person now just says. Here is an example:

The example above shows you a sentence that just pronounced by a person. The tense of the accompanying clause She says is the simple present here. The personal pronoun in the accompanying clause is that she and as an introductory verb here to say used.

In contrast to direct speech, reported speech, also called indirect speech, is a way of repeating what someone said without quotes to have to use. In addition, the personal pronouns, place and time information as well as the tense are mostly adjusted. In the following table you will find the example sentences of direct speech again in indirect speech.

Direct SpeechReported Speech»I wanted to have lunch with you last week,» he said.He said he had wanted to have lunch with me the week before.She asked, «Are you free tonight?»She asked if I was free that night .She says, «I want a cup of tea.»She says she wants a cup of tea.

But how exactly do you convert direct to indirect speech? What is the tense of indirect speech and what do you have to consider when converting personal pronouns, for example?

Reported Speech – Rules, Education & Examples

There are some basic rules that you should follow when conversion of direct speech to indirect speech. In indirect speech, German usually uses the subjunctive, while English uses der indicative.

To make the different uses of the different verb forms clear to you, look at this example:

The verb had is in the indicative. at had it is the past tense of the verb to have. In comparison, pay attention to the German translation. Here you can find with «would have no choice» a subjunctive.

There is another difference between the two languages ​​when it comes to the use of reported speech. In addition to using the indicative in indirect speech in English no comma before or after to the accompanying sentence set. The example below illustrates this:

You can see that in indirect speech, unlike in German, no comma was used.

In order to use the correct tense in indirect speech, first take a closer look at the accompanying clause of direct speech. If the introductory verb is in the simple present, the tense is not changed in the entire sentence. You can see this in the following example:

Since the accompanying sentence Mary says is in the present tense, the tense remains.

Will he speech accompanying clause of direct speech, however, in the past play, the tense shifts one time further into the past. This will too time shift or backshift called.

The accompanying sentence Mary said is used in the example to indicate that Mary has something in the past said. At the same time, this means that the direct speech verb has to be put back by one tense. In this case from the simple present to the simple past. This is how it becomes want the wanted.

For clarity, below is a table showing how the tenses in Direct Speech need to be modified when the accompanying clause is in the Simple Past.

Direct SpeechReported SpeechSimple Present: Mary said, «I want some coffee.»Simple Past: Mary said (that) she wanted some coffee. Present Progressive: Mary said, «I am having coffee.»Past Progressive: Mary said (that) she was having coffee.Simple Past: Mary said, «I had some coffee.»Past Perfect Simple: Mary said (that) she had had some coffee.Past Progressive: Mary said, «I was having some coffee.»Past Perfect Progressive: Mary said (that) she had been having some coffee. Present perfect: Mary said, «I have wanted some coffee.» Past perfect: Mary said (that) she had wanted some coffee. Present perfect progressive: Mary said, «I have been drinking coffee.»Past Perfect Progressive: Mary said (that) she had been drinking coffee.Past Perfect Simple: Mary said, «I had had some coffee.»Past Perfect Simple: Mary said (that) she had had some coffee. Past Perfect Progressive: Mary said, «I had been drinking some coffee.» Past Perfect Progressive: Mary said (that) she had been drinking some coffee. Future Simple: Mary said, «It will rain on Monday.» would: Mary said (that) it would rain on Monday. Future Continuous: Mary said. «I will be leaving.» would: Mary said (that) she would be leaving. Future Perfect: Mary said. «I will have left by 6:00.»would: Mary said (that) she would have left by 6:00. Future Perfect ContinuousMary said, «I will have been working…»: would: Mary said (that) she would have been working…

As you can see, the tenses of indirect speech have been adjusted depending on what tense the sentence was in in direct speech. You can also see that the past perfect and past perfect progressive tenses don’t change. That’s because these «unable to continue» can be shifted into the past.

Peculiarities of the reported speech

There are three exceptions where you backshift do not have to do:

• Statements that are still ongoing

Since Lisa still loves her parents, the tense of this statement is usually not changed.

The phrase «The sun always rises in the east.» is a fact, so the tense remains unchanged here as well.

• Events that have not yet happened

You see by the next week in the above example that the event has not yet arrived. So you echo Lisa’s words after the conversation, but the week hasn’t passed yet, so the event is still in the future. Therefore, the tense in the reported speech usually does not change.

modal verbs

Convert Reported Speech

Apart from the tense, depending on the situation, the personal pronouns and the indications of place and time in indirect speech also have to be adjusted.

personal pronouns

The personal pronouns in English are converted as follows:

In the example, reported speech is used because someone else says Michael is going to the park. That this I to a hey is because the person who said the sentence masculine is. If Michael were female, it would I to a she will:

But it will not only be the personal pronoun I transformed, but also that we and the you:

The personal pronouns hey, she and they are not changed in indirect speech:

As mentioned before, although personal pronouns are usually modified, it depends on the situation:

Based on the example you can see that here, depending on the situation, the I not changed. Whether a personal pronoun has to be converted or not always depends on the respective speaker.

If something is reproduced in indirect speech, care must also be taken to ensure that references to place or time…