Page 35 - Arrow Publications Pvt. Ltd.

10. Very few people are as great as Ratan Tata.
________________________________________________________________________________________.

________________________________________________________________________________________.
B. Direct and Indirect Speech

We can use two types of speech in spoken and written English:
• Direct speech

• Indirect or reported speech
Direct speech repeats or quotes the exact words of the speaker. We put the words spoken
between quotation marks (“ ”) and the words are not changed.

Reported or Indirect speech is used to tell someone about a conversation that happened in
the past so we normally change the words according to the tense. We use reporting words
such as ‘say‘, ‘tell’, ‘ask’, and we may use the word ‘that‘ to introduce the reported words.
Inverted commas are not used.

Said and Told
• We use ‘said‘ when the speaker is mentioned but not the person spoken to.

Examples : He said, “I am tired.” (Direct speech)
He said that he was tired. (Indirect speech)

• We use ‘told‘ when the speaker and the person spoken to are mentioned.
Examples : He said to me, “I am tired.” (Direct speech)

He told me that he was tired. (Indirect speech)

Asked

• We use ‘asked‘ when the speaker asks a question.
Examples : He said, “Where are you going?” (Direct speech)
He asked me where I was going. (Indirect speech)

He said to me, “What is the cricket score?” (Direct speech)

He asked me what the cricket score was. (Indirect speech)

Rules to change from direct to indirect speech

Direct Speech Indirect Speech
• am / is / are – was, were

• was / were – had been

• will – would

• have / has – had

• present form of verb – past form of verb

33 Arrow - English Plus-8