Reported Speech Rules

When changing from direct to indirect speech, you need to change the grammar in certain
ways. In this section, we are going to be looking a little more closely at direct and indirect
speech and how they are used.

Verb Tense Changes in Reported Speech

Present
If the reporting verb is in the present tense, then very little needs to be done to the direct
speech sentence to change it. Here’s an example.

 Direct speech: I like dogs.

 Reported speech: She says she likes dogs.
Here nothing really needed to be changed except the pronoun, because you are now talking
about somebody else, so ‘I’ becomes ‘She’ or ‘He’. The tense is still the same because ‘says’
is the present tense version of the reporting verb. But what happens if the sentence needs to
be changed to past tense?

Past
Sometimes it is necessary to change the reporting verb into the past tense if what was said is
no longer relevant, or was said sometime in the past. Here are the changes that would need to
be made.

 Direct speech: I like dogs.

 Reported speech: She said she liked dogs.
As well as changing the pronouns here, we’ve had to change the tense of both the reporting
verb and the verb. So, ‘says’ becomes ‘said’ and ‘like’ becomes ‘liked’.

When the reporting verb is in the past tense, verb tense forms usually need to change.
The tenses generally move backward in this way:

 Present Simple Tense into Past Simple Tense

 Present Continuous Tense into Past Continuous Tense
 Present Perfect Tense into Past Perfect Tense
 Past Simple Tense into Past Perfect Tense
 Past Continuous Tense into Past Perfect Continuous Tense
 Past Perfect Tense (the tense remains unchanged)
Future
If somebody is talking about what will happen in the future then, again, you will need to
change the tense of the reporting verb.
  Direct speech: I shall leave in a moment.
 Reported speech: She said that she would leave in a moment.
Notice how ‘shall’ and “will” become ‘would’ here in order for it to make sense.

 Will into Would

 Will be into Would be
 Will have into Would have
 Will have been into Would have been
Modal verbs actually have a very interesting relationship with reported speech, so we’ll look
at that below too.

Modal Verbs and Reported Speech

We’ve already covered modal verbs in another article, but it’s interesting to see how they are
changed in reported speech.

 Can into Could

 Could (The verb remains unchanged)
 Have to into Had to
 Must into Must/Had to
 May into Might
 Might (The verb remains unchanged)
 Should (The verb remains unchanged)
Let’s take a look at some examples.

 Direct speech: Will I see you later?

 Reported speech: He asked if he would see me later.
In the direct speech example you can see the modal verb ‘will’ being used to ask a question.
Notice how in reported speech the modal verb ‘will’ and the reporting verb ‘ask’ are both
written in the past tense. So, ‘will’ becomes ‘would’ and ‘ask’ becomes ‘asked’. It’s
important in reported speech to make sure that each part of the sentence is in the same tense.

Sometimes though, modal verbs do not need to change tense because they already read
correctly. Here’s an example.

 Direct speech: I should go to the park.

 Reported speech: He told me he should go to the park.
Notice that nothing needed to be changed here to fit the past tense reporting verb ‘told’.
‘Should’ does not need to be changed grammatically for either sentence to make sense. But
you will notice that because we decided to use the reporting verb ‘told’ instead of ‘said’, we
had to include the pronoun ‘me’ for it to make sense.

 Reported speech: He told me he should go to the park.

 Reported speech: He said he should go to the park.
Both of these sentences make grammatical sense, because we added the pronoun ‘me’ after
‘told’ in the first sentence, but we didn’t after ‘said’ in the second one. Here is
the incorrect versions so you can see why it doesn’t work grammatically:
  Incorrect reported speech: He told he should go to the park.
 Incorrect reported speech: He said me he should go to the park.
In order to make the top one make sense, we need to add ‘me’ like we did in the correct
examples above. In order to make the second one make sense, we would either have to
remove ‘me’ like we did in the correct one above, or we would have to add another word. So
that it looked like this.

 Reported speech: He said to me he should go to the park.

The above sentence makes sense, but sometimes you have to watch your wording of certain
things to make sure that you aren’t over-speaking/writing. This can be a problem if you are
trying to get your point across quickly. You should always choose the option that is quickest
to say/write because it sounds/looks better and you run less risk of making a grammatical
mistake.

This guide could not possibly be extensive, because there are many grammar rules that need
to be followed when reporting speech, but they vary wildly. The take-home message should
really be that when reporting speech, it is important to think carefully about what you are
going to say or write, so you know it makes sense. Hopefully, this guide served as a good
starting point though, so you can identify reported speech now, and start to think about which
grammar rules are applied.

Direct and Indirect Speech

Changes in Time and Place in Reported
Speech
Time and place references often have to change in Indirect Speech

 Now –> Then

 Today –> That day
 Here –> There
 This –> That
 Tomorrow –> The following day/ The next day/ The day after
 Next week –> The following week/ The next week/ The week after
 Yesterday –> The previous day/ The day before
 Last week –> The previous week/ The week before
 Ago –> Previously/ Before
Tonight –> That night

Change in Verb Tenses in Reported

Speech
There is no change in verb tenses in Indirect Speech when:

 The introductory verb is in the Present, Present Perfect or Future.

  If the reported sentence deals with a fact or general truth.
 The reported sentence contains a time clause.
 The verb of the sentence is in the unreal past (the second or the third
conditional).
 The subjunctive stays unchanged in the subordinate clause.
 Had better, could, would, used to, should, might, ought
to and mustn’t remain unchanged.
 If the speaker reports something immediately or soon after it was said.
Reporting Verbs in Indirect Speech
List of reporting verbs in reported speech.

 Tell, say, ask.

 Verb + that + clause: complain, deny, explain, exclaim, remark, promise,
boast, inform somebody, claim, agree, suggest.
 Verb + to + infinitive: agree, offer, refuse, demand, threaten, promise, claim.
 Verb + indirect object + to + infinitive: advise, allow, beg, command,
encourage, forbid, invite, want, instruct, permit, urge, order, remind, warn.
 Verb + “ing” form: admit (to), accuse somebody of, apologize for, boast
about/ of, complain to somebody of, deny, insist on, suggest.
 Verb + how: explain to somebody.
 Wonder.
 Changes of Pronouns in Reported
Speech
 In indirect speech, you need to be careful with personal pronouns. They need to be
changed according to the situation. You need to know the context.
 Reported Questions in English
 When you are changing a question from direct speech into indirect speech, you follow
the same kinds of rules as for statements.
 To report a question, we use verbs such as inquire, wonder, want to know, ask…
 Reported Commands and Requests in
English
 Reported Orders, Commands, and Requests are formed using the to-infinitive and not
to-infinitive.
 The reporting verbs for the orders/ commands/ requests are order, shout, demand,
warn, beg, command, tell, insist, beseech, threaten, implore, ask, propose, forbid…
 When we change from direct to indirect speech, the pronoun and tense changes are
also needed.