REPORTED SPEECH EXPLANATION AND PRACTICE

1. REPORTED SPEECH
4ºESO
By Estela Albaladejo Martínez

2. Let’s learn it through music!
■ The Scientist- Coldplay
■ WHAT’S THE SONG ABOUT?
■ WHERE CAN YOU FIND REPORTED SPEECH?
“Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this
hard”

3. When to use it
■ If you want to repeat what somebody else said, wrote or thought, you have two
options: direct reported speech or indirect reported speech. In direct reported
speech, you put what the person said in quotation marks (“”):
Nobody said, “It’s easy.”
No-one said, “It will be hard”.
■ Indirect reported speech is where you change the speaker’s original words by
indirectly reporting what they said. Such sentences are made up of two parts: a
reporting clause and a reported clause:
Nobody said, “It’s easy” (Direct)
Nobody said it was easy. (Indirect- from the song)
REPORTING CLAUSE REPORTED CLAUSE

4. TENSE CHANGES
■ AS WE ARE REPORTING SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST, WE NORMALLY HAVE
TO GO ONE STEP BACK TO THE PAST TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE REPORTING VERB
THAT WE ARE USING. SO THE CORRESPONDING CHANGES ARE THE FOLLOWING:
DIRECT SPEECH REPORTED SPEECH
Present Simple Past Simple
Present Continuous Past Continuous
Will/Would Would
Am/is/are going to Was/Were going to
Past Simple Past Perfect
Present Perfect Past Perfect
Can Could
May Might
Must Had to

5. CHANGES TO DEMONSTRATIVES, ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL
EXPRESSIONS
DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH
This/These That/Those
Now Then
Here There
Today That day
Yesterday The previous day
DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH
Next The following
Last The previous
A week ago A week before
Tomorrow The following day

6. EXAMPLES
TENSE DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH
PRESENT SIMPLE I eat ice-cream today She said (that) she ate ice-cream
that day
PRESENT CONTINUOUS I am living in London She said (that) she was living in
London
WILL I’ll see you later She said (that) she would see
me later
PAST SIMPLE I bought a car She said (that) she had bought a
car
PRESENT PERFECT I haven’t seen Julie She said (that) she hadn’t seen
Julie
PAST PERFECT I had taken English lessons
before.
She said (that) she had taken
English lessons before.
MUST I must study at the weekend She said (that) she had to study
at the weekend.
CAN I can speak perfect English She said (that) she could speak
perfect English

7. LET’S PRACTISE IT
■ GO TO PAGE 73 OF YOUR STUDENT’S BOOK

8. REPORTED QUESTIONS
(WH-QUESTIONS)
■ To transform a wh-question into indirect reported speech, we move the wh-word to
the beginning of the reported clause and use the affirmative, not the interrogative.
He asked, “What am I doing here? (Direct)
He asked what he was doing there (Indirect)

9. REPORTED QUESTIONS
(YES-NO QUESTIONS)
■ If we have a “yes”-”no” question, we use “if” or “whether” instead of the wh-
question after the reporting verb and, then, the affirmative. A good example of this
is the song "Somewhere only we know” by Keane.
Tim from Keane asked, “Is this place that I’ve been dreaming of?” (Direct)
Tim from Keane asked if/whether that was the place he’d been dreaming of
(Indirect)

10. REPORTED REQUESTS AND COMMANDS
TO ASK/TELL + OBJECT + (NOT) + INFINITIVE WITH “TO”
■ The difference between requests (peticiones) and commands (órdenes) is that
acommands are orders and requestes are not. For indirect reported requests, we
usually use the verb “to ask+ object (him/her)+ (not)+ infinitive with “to”. For
indirect reported commands, we usually use the verb “to tell+ object (him/her)
(not)+ infinitive with “to”.
Let’s take this example from David Bowie’s Space Oddity:
Ground control said to Major Tom, “Take your protein pills”. (Direct)
Ground control asked Major Tom to take his protein pills. (Indirect- request)
Ground control told Major Tom to take his protein pills. (Indirect- order)

11. LET’S PRACTISE IT
■ GO TO PAGE 75 OF YOUR STUDENT’S BOOK

12. LET’S GATHER EVERYTHING!
■ Click here to see a SUMMARY
■ CLICK HERE TO SEE AN EXAMPLE IN CONTEXT

13. BIBLIOGRAPHY
■ Isard, N & Vivas, D (2016) All you need is English. Barcelona: Planeta
■ Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/?hl=es&gl=ES)