Verbs and prepositions

Reported speech

Match the verbs with the prepositions and phrases: Respond Listen Deal Believe Delegate Communicate Invest

in their employees’ abilities

to a deputy as often as possible

to employees’ concerns promptly

with colleagues clearly with problems quickly in regular training

courses for employees to all suggestions from

staff

Say whether the following combine with someone or something:

1) Report to/ report on

2) Apologize for/ apologize to

3) Talk to/ talk about

4) Agree with/ agree on

5) Argue about/ argue with

Complete these sentences with suitable prepositions from the previous exercise:

I agreed ______ her that we need to change our marketing strategy.

I talk _____ my boss every Monday at our regular meeting.

We argued _____ next year’s budget for over an hour.

He apologized ______ losing his temper.We talked ________ our financial

problems for a long time.

The Finance Director argued _______ our Managing Director over profit sharing.

I apologised _______ Paula for giving her the wrong figures.

Can we agree _______ the date of our next meeting?

We use reporting verbs like SAY, TELL and ASK to report what other people say:

We can report the words that have just been said:

In this case, the situation is in the present tense (The boss says she wants to see you immediately.)

We can report words said in the past: The tenses change (one tense back) and

different pronouns are used to suit the context:

For example:

1) “We are not going to panic”

He said they were not going to panic.

2) “We won’t know before Friday”

She said they wouldn’t know before Friday.

Tense changes:

Present simple →---------- Present continuous →---- Present perfect →--------- Present perfect

continuous →----------- Simple past →---------- Future →------------------ Future continuous → ----- Conditional →

-------------

Past simple Past continuous Past perfect

Past perfect continuous Past perfect Conditional Conditional continuous Conditional

Reporting questions:

We use ASK to report questions.Note the word order: (1) question word, (2)

subject, (3) verb

He asked her when she wanted to take her vacation.

He asked her if/ whether she wanted to take her vacation in July or August.

Change the following sentences into reported speech:

John: “I have already eaten my sandwich.”_________________________________Mary: “I took it home with me.”_________________________________My mother: “I am waiting for Ann.”_________________________________Bill: “I will/shall be in Paris on Monday.”_________________________________