Reported Speech

Use of Reported Speech

When want to say what someone else has said, in English, there are two ways to do this. The first way is to directly quote what someone has said. So, for example, if John said: "I want to eat some cake."

John said, "I want to eat some cake."

In this case, we just take the quote and repeat it exactly the same by using quotation marks (“”). The formula looks like this: Speaker + said, “Quote.” It's very important that you don't forget the quotation marks.

However, if we want to say what someone else has said without directly quoting them, we use reported speech. With our previous example, this look like this:

John said that he wanted to eat some cake.

Let’s look at a few other examples of a direct quote compared to reported speech.  

Rules of Reported Speech

Now, let's go through the major rules of reported speech.

RULE #1 - Change Verbs to the Past Tense

When using reported speech, you must change the verb to the past tense. There are two exceptions to this, which we will see later, but even in those cases, it is still perfectly acceptable to use the past tense. So, the simplest rule to remember is: always change the verb to the past tense. 

Recall that the verb will change to the past tense in different ways depending on which aspect it is in (simple, perfect, progressive, perfect-progressive).  

So, let's go over an example from each.

Present

Past

How is it possible to make the past tense 'more past tense?' Well, we can add the perfect aspect to it (Have/has walked, had walked, will have walked) using the auxiliary verb to have. But we can only do this if the quote is in the simple or progressive aspect. Notice how when the quote is in the past perfect or the past perfect-progressive it doesn’t change when made into reported speech. 

Future

To report any quote that uses the future tense, we simply change will to would, since the future tense is created by using a modal verb instead of changing the actual verb. 

Other Modal Verbs

This same method is used to change any modal verb into reported speech. 

Exceptions

Ongoing Action

You don’t have to change the reported speech into the past tense if the action is still ongoing. 

For example, if you are about to get on a bus, and your friend, Lily, tells you, “The bus is late,” then you walk over and tell your other friend, you would say: “Lily said the bus is late.”

Habit

You also don’t have to change the reported speech into past tense if what you are reporting is habitual behavior, or information that is very unlikely to have changed since it was said to you. For example:

RULE #2 - Match Pronouns Correctly

You must keep track of 

1. Who is talking. 

2. Who they are talking to.

3. Who they are talking about. 

Look at the following example:

(You to me)

“I am sure that my mom hates you.”

You said that you were sure your mom hated me.

NOTE: Changing the pronoun can may mean that you need to change the verb if the pronoun takes a different verb form. In the example above, the first-person singular takes the verb am, but the third-person singular takes the verb were. 

(You to me)

“You can run faster than Chenda.”

You said that I could run faster than Chenda.

RULE #3 - Account for Changes in Time and Place

The original quote is said at a different time and place than when you report the speech, so this needs to be accounted for. Anytime words that are relative to time and place are used, they will need to be changed. This includes:

Rules for Reporting Questions

Those three are the rules for reporting statements, but there are three more rules you need to know when reporting questions.

RULE #4 - The Word Order Needs to Change to Put it into Subject-Verb-Object Order

Some questions put the verb before the subject. For example:

(She to me)

"When areV youS leaving?"

She asked me when IS wasV leaving.

Notice that the reported speech is a statement. It ends in a period, not a question mark. In a statement, the subject needs to come before the verb. So, we need to change the order of the words. Another example:

(He to him)

“Which province areV youS from?”

He asked him which province heS wasV from.

Some questions put the subject before the verb, but include auxiliary verbs at the beginning of the sentence that need to be reordered. When auxiliary verbs are included, the order is this: Subject-Modal Verb-Auxiliary Verb-Verb-Object (or S-MOD-AUX-V-O). For example:

(Me to you)

“Where haveAUX youS beenV?”

I asked you where youS hadAUX beenV.

Or:

(She to her)

“What time willMOD youS arriveV?

She asked her what time sheS wouldMOD arriveV.

Or:

(She to me)

“In ten years, how long willMOD youS haveAUX beenAUX studyingV English for?”

She asked me how long IS wouldMOD haveAUX beenAUX studyingV English for ten years from then.

RULE #5 - Remove the Auxiliary Verb "To do"

Speaking of auxiliary verbs, if the question has the auxiliary verb to do, which is often used to create questions, it should be removed entirely from the reported speech. For example:

(He to her)

“Where does this bag belong?”

He asked her where that bag belongs.

RULE #6 - Use "if" or "whether" when Reporting Yes/No Questions

Finally, when reporting a question where the answer is either Yes or No, you need to add if or whether. For example:

(She to her)

“Did you go to the park yesterday?”

She asked her if she went to the park the day before.

She asked her whether she went to the park the day before.

Or:

(She to me)

“Are you happy today?”

She asked me if I was happy that day.

She asked me whether I was happy that day.

Or:

(Me to her)

“Will you come with me?”

I asked her if she would come with me.

I asked her whether she would come with me.