Reported Speech

Statements - general information

• Verb tense - We have to identify in what tense the direct speech is to change it into
past in the reported speech (Present Simple - Past Simple, Will - Would - Present
Perfect Simple - Past Perfect Simple…).
• Subjects
• Objects - Give me / give him/her
• Determiners
-This - that
-These - those
• Possessive pronouns - “Give us the number” / give them the number

Peter said “I will go to this party you are telling me about

Peter said (that) he would go to that party I was telling him about
Peter said “I may arrive late”
Peter said that He might arrive late
Peter said “I didn’t do that”
Peter said that he hadn’t done that

Imperatives
• We use the verb we have in the direct speech and we use its infinitive in the reported
speech.
• We know it’s an imperative because it doesn’t have a subject.

Robert told me “Give me that”

Robert told me to give him that
My mother said “Don’t make any noise or you will wake up the baby”
My mother said not to make any noise or I would wake up the baby

Questions - “Wh”
• We know this is the case when we find a “question word” like: What, Where, When,
How…
• When writing the reported speech we must use the same “question word” that the
direct speech has ant then undo the inversion we have in the question since we are
not writing a question in the reported speech.

He asked me “Where have you been?”

He asked me where I had been
He asked “Where do you usually spend your holidays?”
He asked where I usually spent my holidays
He asked “How often does he dust and vacuum here?”
He asked how often he dusted and vacuumed there

Suggestions
Why don’t…
How about +ing …
To suggest +ing
Why don’t we go to the cinema?
How about going to the cinema?
He suggested going to the cinema

My father suggested eating in a restaurant

My father suggested “… eating in a restaurant?”
“… we eat in a restaurant?”

Yes/No questions - IF
• We know them because we can answer them with a yes/no answer.
• We must use “if” before starting with all the changes. After this we proceed the same
way we proceed with the “Questions - Wh”.

She asked “Are you french?”

He asked me if I was french
He asked me “Have you watched BMX racing on TV this week?”
He asked me if I had watched BMX racing on TV that week

Examples
They asked me if I had been having a good time
They asked me “Have you been having a good time?”

My teacher asked me if I would like to answer that question

My teacher asked me “Would you like to answer this question?”

My brother asked me where I was earning that amount of money

My brother asked me “Where are you earning this amount of money?”

His mother asked him when he was going to come to her house
His mother asked him “When are you going to come to my house”

The teacher said not to speak so loudly

The teacher said “Don’t speak loudly”

My mother told us to go and get some cheese

My mother told us “Go and get some cheese”

Esther said not to stop being so selfish

Esther said “Don’t Stop being so selfish”

He said that he had been having fun that day

He said “I have been having fun today”

*One important tip. These are general rules although not always are 100% precise.
To make sure we are transforming the sentence correctly we can always translate it
into the Spanish language and then check whether we have make all the necessary
changes.