1.
Direct Speech
Saying exactly what someone has said is called direct
speech, sometimes called quoted speech. Here what a person says appears within
quotation marks ("...") and should be word for word.
2.
Indirect Speech
Indirect
speech (reported speech), doesn't use quotation marks to enclose what the
person said and it doesn't have to be word for word.
When
reporting speech the tense usually changes. This is because when we use
reported speech, we are usually talking about a time in the past, because
obviously the person who spoke originally spoke in the past. The verbs
therefore usually have to be in the past too.
Example :
• Direct: Budi said,
“I am very busy now.”
• Indirect: Budi said that he was very busy
then.
• Direct : She said,
“ my Father is writing letter.”
• Indirect: She said that her Father was writing
letter.
It will be noticed that in Direct Speech, we use inverted
commas to mark off the exact words of the speaker. In Indirect Speech we do not
use the inverted commas.
It will be further noticed that in changing the
above Direct Speech into Indirect speech, certain changes have been made.
Thus:
i. We have used the conjunction ‘that’ before
the Indirect Statement.
ii. The pronoun “I” is changed to “HE”. (The
Pronoun is changed in Person)
iii. The verb “am” is changed to “was”.
iv. The adverb “now” is changed to “then”.
Rules for changing Direct into Indirect Speech:
When the reporting or principal verb is in the Past Tense,
all the Present Tenses in the Direct Speech are changed into Past Tense.
1. A simple
present tense becomes simple past tense.
Example :
·
She said, “its cold.”
·
She said it was cold.
2. A present
continuous tense becomes a past continuous.
Example :
·
She said, “i’m teaching english.”
·
She said she was teaching english
3. A present
perfect becomes a past perfect.
Example
:
·
She
said, “I’ve been on the web since 1999.”
·
She
said she had been on the web since 1999.
4.
simple past tense becomes the past perfect tense.
Example :
·
She said, “I taught online yesterday.”
·
She said she had taught online yesterday.
5. Past continuous become past perfect
contonuous
Example
:
·
She
said, “I was teaching earlier.”
·
She
said she had been teaching earlier.
6. Past perfect become past perfect.
Example
:
·
She
said, “the lesson had already started when he arrived.
·
She
said the lesson had already started when he arrived.
7. Past perfect continuous become past perfect
continuous.
Example
:
·
She
said, “I’d already been teaching for five minutes.”
·
She
said she’d already been teaching for five minutes.
Modal verb forms also
sometimes change:
The shall of
the future is changed into should.
Example
:
·
She said, “what shall
we learn today?”
·
She asked what we should
learn today.
The will of
the future is changed into would.
Example
:
·
She said, “I will
teach english tomorrow”
·
She said would
teach english tomorrow.
The can and may of the future are changed into could and might respectively.
Example :
·
She
said, “I can teach english”
·
She
said she could teach english.
·
She
said,”May i open a new browser?”
·
She
asked if she might open a new
browser.