LET'S LOOK AT ENGLISH

REPORTED SPEECH
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REPORTED SPEECH
 
Quotations:-
 
When I was a little boy my mother said, "One day you will be a famous doctor!"
 
When I was a little girl my mother said, "One day you will be a famous actress!"
 
Reported Speech:-
 
When you were young your mother told you that you would be a famous doctor and your mother told you that you would be a famous actress.  Do you think these are good ideas to implant in young children's heads?

When reporting something that someone has said we do not use quoatation marks instead we use the rules of reported speech.
 
All the tenses shift:-
 
Future              to Future Past         
Present             to Past
Past                 to Past Perfect
Present Perfect  to Past Perfect
 
Places, Times, Pronouns
 
here           to there
this            to that
now           to then
yesterday   to the day before or the previous day
tomorrow    to the day after or the following day
last week    to the week before
next week   to the following week
 
 
Examples:-
 
PRESENT TO PAST
She said, "I am hungry."
She said she was hungry.
 
FUTURE TO FUTURE PAST
He said, "I will meet you tomorrow."
He said he would meet you the following day.
 
PAST TO PAST PERFECT
You said, "I didn't have time to finish my work yesterday."
You said you hadn't had time to finish your work the day before.
 
PRESENT PERFECT TO PAST PERFECT
They said, "We haven't found the answer."
They said they hadn't found the answer.
 
 
 

Exercises
 
Change the following sentences to reported speech.  For the sake of these exercises imagine that everything happened ten years ago.
 
1.  He said, "I am hungry, I haven't eaten all day."
 
2.  She said, "I will meet you tomorrow.  I have to finish my work today."
 
3.  You said, "I didn't have time to finish this, I will do it next week."
 
4.  They said, "We haven't found the answer.  It is too difficult.  We have been working on this for the last two hours and we don't know how to do it."

TIPS TO HELP YOU REMEMBER THE RULES
 
Use a coloured pen and mark everything that needs to be changed - verbs, pronouns, places, times, etc.  Only then begin to rewrite the sentence.  In time this will become automatic but it takes a lot of practice.  Good Luck!

LOVE LIFE AND LOVE LEARNING - BOTH ARE PRECIOUS
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
BELIEVE IN YOUR ABILITY AND NEVER GIVE UP
GRAB HOLD OF AN IDEA AND FLY WITH IT
THE SKY'S THE LIMIT