Reported Speechin English

He said th

at…

If / Whether

“Will she read…

?”

TO + Infinitive

Verbs to the nearest PAST

“I” changes to “he”

The idea of Reported Speech is that of re-telling other people´s converstaions. The usual sceneario is two people having a conversation and another person saying what those two people have said. Of course, we can be one of the two people in the conversation, but to start out, we are going to suppose we are only retelling other people´s words.

Considering what has been explained before, we can understand the “Reported Speech” idea because “to report” means to “to explain/inform” and “speech” is the words that are said. Thus, “reported speech” is “original speech” that is “reported”, that is, “explained” or “informed” to somebody else.

So we need an original sentence from a dialogue, which we will transform. However, before we do that, we have to take some things into due consideration.

First of all, we have to shift all the PRONOUNS into the 3rd Person

Secondly, the VERBS have to go back to the nearest PAST tense available

Finally, there are a series of SELECTED WORDS which have to be changed

STATEMENTS: All types of Affirmative and Negative sentencesQUESTIONS: There are two types of questions:

ORDERS / SUGGESTIONS: Here we mainly deal with IMPERATIVES

YES-NO Questions: You answer with a “Yes” or a “No”WH-WORD Questions: You give information on the WH-Word

Firstly, you are going to learn how to transform an original sentence and, after that, we will have a detailed view on the different types of original sentences.

Let´s start out with this sentence:

I can´t deal with your problem as you have not given me details

Fisrt, we are going to mark out the PRONOUNS…And now we should do the same thing with the VERBS

We will forget about the SELECTED WORDS till later

Before we proceed any further, let us have a look at the…

SUBJECTS OBJECTS POSS. ADJS.

POSS. PRONS.

REFLEXIVES

ME MINE MYSELF

SINGULAR

YOU

YOU YOURS YOURSELF

2nd P

MY

YOUR

SHE

HER3rd P

HE HIM

HERS HERSELF

3rd P

HER

HIS

IT IT ITS

ITSELF3rd P

ITS

WE US OURS

OURSELVES1st P

OUR

YOU

YOU YOURS

YOURSELVES2nd P

YOUR

THEY THEM THEIRS

THEMSELVES3rd P

THEIR

PLURAL

I1st P

HIS HIMSELF

Now, the next step is to shift the Pronouns to the 3rd Person…

can´t deal withI your problem as you have not given me details

Then, we will push the verbs to the nearest Past…

can´tHe her problem as she haven´t him any detailsdeal with given

As we said before, there is a list of SELECTED WORDS which can also be transformed, but that will be later on…

He her she him

couldn´t hadn´t

The way to transform an Original Sentence is indicating three parts:

1. The person who is reporting the conversation

2. The reporting Verb according to the type of Original Sentence

3. The reporting Connector according to the type of Original Sentence

Here we are going to deal with Statements.

Let´s see those three parts:

1. The person who is reporting the conversation

2. The reporting Verb in Statements is…

3. The reporting Connector in Statements is…

It depends on the people who are in the dialogue.

Any SPEECH verb such as SAY, TELL, EXPLAIN, MUTTER, EXPRESS, REPLY…

THAT (you can omit this Connector)

The two main Reporting Verbs are SAY and TELL. Let´s see their differences…

SAY has got two typical structures…

SAY + TO + Person + THAT => He said TO me that…

TELL + Person + THAT => He told me that

SAY + THAT => He said that…

TELL has only got ONE structure

And now an example…

“I can´t study the exercises although the teacher wants me to.”

“Yes, I know it. We are always hurrying trying to do his tasks.”

Student A (a boy)

Student B (a girl)

The transformation would go as follows…Student A said that he couldn´t study the exercises although the teacher wanted him to. Student B replied that she knew it and told Student A that they were always hurrying trying to do his tasks.

We can have two different types of questions:

a. Yes/No Questionsb. Wh-Word Questions

The three parts in Questions are the same except for the Connector…1. The person who is reporting the conversation

2. The reporting Verb in Questions is…

It depends on the people who are in the dialogue.

Any QUESTION verb such as ASK, WONDER, WANT TO KNOW, DEMAND, INQUIRE…

The Connector varies according to the type of question…

Yes/No Questions => CONNECTOR is

or

WH-Word Questions => CONNECTOR is…

The WH-Word itself

And now an example…

“Will you give me my birthday presents?”

Yes/No Questions

The little girl asked if/whether he would give her her birthday presents.

The little girl:

“Why do you want to know?”

WH-Word Questions

The little girl´s father asked why she wanted to know.

The little girl´s father:

There are two dangers in the reporting of questions:

1. When we report a question, we cannot retain the question structure AUX + SUBJECT + VERB + COMPLEMENT? because it is NOT a question anymore…

Can you explain that to me?

He asked if she could explain that to her.

2. You have to be very careful with the translation into Spanish. In Spanish sentences such as…

Me preguntó QUE SI yo sabía eso

Me preguntó SI yo sabía eso

are perfectly right, but in English you CANNOT say THAT when reporting questions because it is a Connector only for Statements…

She asked me if I knew that

She asked me THAT if I knew that

The three parts in Orders/Suggestions are:1. The person who is reporting the conversation

2. The reporting Verb in Orders/Suggestions is…

3. The reporting Connector in Orders/Suggestions is…

It depends on the people who are in the dialogue.

Any ORDER/SUGGESTION verb such as TELL (Order), ASK (Sugg), COMMAND, PROPOSE, ORDER…

In Positive sentences => TO + InfinitiveIn Negative sentences => NOT TO + Infinitive

And now, the examples…

Mother to her daughter:

“Do your homework and do not take too much time!!”

The mother told her daughter TO do her homework and NOT TO take too much time.

We have not forgotten those “Selectec Words” which we mentioned at the beginning of this presentation. They are words which are ALWAYS changed in Reported Speech. Luckily, they are not quite a lot!!

NOW

THE DAY BEFORE / THE PREVIOUS DAY

THESE

HERETODAY

TOMORROW

YESTERDAY

THEN

THAT

THOSE

THERETHAT DAYTHE NEXT DAY / THE FOLLOWING DAY

THIS

AGO BEFORE