Reported speech grammar rules pdf

Past Perfect Continuous I had been exercising more often. He said that he had been exercising more often. Future Perfect Continuous By next month, I will have been a nurse for 10 years. She said that by next month, she will have been a nurse for 10 years. How to Change Tenses in Reported Speech As you can see, the rules governing how to report speech can vary based on the tense of the original statement. Here are a few examples: Simple Present : Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.

Present Continuous : The planet is rotating around the sun. Present Perfect : Human beings have always liked dogs. Reporting Questions Reporting statements is relatively straightforward, as it usually just requires the second clause to change tense sometimes not even that.

All of the tense changes are the same: Simple Present : Do you like to read? Present Perfect : Have you spoken to her? Simple Past : Did you believe the story? Past Continuous : How were you behaving? Simple Future : Will you go shopping later? Future Continuous : Will you be cooking tonight? Future Perfect : Will you have received your diploma by then? Present Perfect Continuous — Have you been doing your homework?

Past Perfect Continuous — How long had you been sleeping? Future Perfect Continuous — Will you have been travelling? Requests and Demands To keep things simple, requests are treated the same as questions when reported to someone else. For example: Please sit down. Could you open the door for me? Would you mind holding my bag? Brush your teeth. Here are a few more time conversions to help you with reported speech: Call your father right now.

I saw you at the movies last night. Were you at school last week? Can I talk to you tomorrow? Matthew Jones. Matthew Jones is a freelance writer with a B.

It was during his time in school that he published his first written work. After serving as a casting director in the Atlanta film industry for two years, Matthew acquired TEFL certification and began teaching English abroad. In , Matthew started writing for dozens of different brands across various industries.

After a reporting verb in the Past tense, a verb in the Present Perfect tense in the Reported Speech is changed into the Past Perfect tense. Rule 5. If the Reporting verb is in the past tense, the Present tense in the Reported Speech is changed into its corresponding past form. Rule 6. Rule 7. Reporting in the verb in the Past Speech tense followed by a verb in the Past Perfect tense Reported speech. Rule 8. After a reporting verb in the Past tense, a verb in the Past Perfect tense in the Reported Speech remains unchanged.

Rule 9. After a reporting verb in the Past tense a verb in the Past Perfect Continuous tense in the Reported Speech remains unchanged. Rule After a reporting verb in the Past tense a verb in the Past Perfect Continuous tense in the Reporting Speech remains unchanged. After a reporting verb in the Past tense shall will, may, and can would in might the Reported Speech are changed the respective application into of the should, would might and could. This is practically the application of the rule according to which the Present Tense in the Reported Speech is changed Into its corresponding Past form.

According to one of the rules relating to the change of tense: If the reporting verb is a Past tense, the tense of the verb in the reported speech must be changed to one or other of the four forms of the Past tense. There is one exception to this rule similar to that described in connection with the Sequence of Tenses. We just use 'tell' instead of 'ask':.

Time Expressions with Reported Speech Sometimes when we change direct speech into reported speech we have to change time expressions too. We don't always have to do this, however. It depends on when we heard the direct speech and when we say the reported speech. For example: It's Monday.

Julie says "I'm leaving today ". If I tell someone on Monday, I say "Julie said she was leaving today ". If I tell someone on Tuesday, I say "Julie said she was leaving yesterday ". If I tell someone a month later, I say "Julie said she was leaving that day ". So, there's no easy conversion. You really have to think about when the direct speech was said.

Here's a table of some possible conversions:. Need more practice? Get more Perfect English Grammar with our courses. I'm Seonaid and I hope you like the website. Please contact me if you have any questions or comments. Reported Speech Click here for a list of reported speech exercises.

Reported Statements When do we use reported speech? Watch my reported speech video: Here's how it works: We use a 'reporting verb' like 'say' or 'tell'. We just put 'she says' and then the sentence: Direct speech: I like ice cream. Reported speech: She says that she likes ice cream.

But , if the reporting verb is in the past tense, then usually we change the tenses in the reported speech: Direct speech: I like ice cream. Reported speech: She said that she liked ice cream. Occasionally, we don't need to change the present tense into the past if the information in direct speech is still true but this is only for things which are general facts, and even then usually we like to change the tense : Direct speech: The sky is blue. Reported Questions So now you have no problem with making reported speech from positive and negative sentences.

Direct speech: Where do you live? How can we make the reported speech here? In fact, it's not so different from reported statements. The tense changes are the same, and we keep the question word. The very important thing though is that, once we tell the question to someone else, it isn't a question any more. So we need to change the grammar to a normal positive sentence. A bit confusing?

Maybe this example will help: Direct speech: Where do you live? Reported speech: She asked me where I lived. Do you see how I made it? The direct question is in the present simple tense. We make a present simple question with 'do' or 'does' so I need to take that away. Then I need to change the verb to the past simple.