Rules on Direct and Indirect Speech Explained
This is Direct & Indirect Speech’s class where students explore the rules on direct and indirect speech in details along-with their examples.
Direct and Indirect Speech
Direct and indirect speech refers how to talk about what someone said, such as telling something that person A said to the person B. How we can convert speech from direct to indirect.
You can answer the question to the person B about what did person A say? in two ways:
- by repeating the words spoken (direct speech)
- by reporting the words spoken (indirect or reported speech).
What is Direct Speech
In Direct speech the spoken words are repeats as the exact words spoken. In writing, we place the spoken words between quotation marks (” “).
Reporting Speech is something that’s being said exactly now and telling it later to someone about a earlier discussion.
- Direct Speech –reporting the message of the speaker in the exact words as spoken by him.
- Direct Speech Example: Maya said ‘I am busy now’.
What is Indirect Speech
Indirect speech (reported speech) is typically used to talk about the past, so we generally change the tense of the spoken words. We use reporting verbs like ‘tell’, ‘say’, ‘ask’, and we may use the word ‘that’ to introduce the reported words. Reported speech do not used Inverted commas.
Indirect Speech: reporting the message of the speaker in our own words
Direct Speech example: She said, “I saw him.”
Indirect Speech example: She said that she had seen him.
“That” may be omitted:
She told him that she was happy. = She told him she was happy.
Rules on Direct And Indirect Speech
Following factors are considered for converting the direct speech sentences into indirect speech sentences.
- Reporting Verb
- Model Verb
- Pronoun
- Tense
- Time
- Place
Let’s discuss each one and learn.
Rule 1 — Reporting Verb
If the reporting verb of direct speech is in past tense then all the present tenses in the indirect speech changed into the corresponding past tense. For example:
Direct: She said, ‘I am happy’.
Indirect: She said (that) she was happy.
If the reporting verb of direct speech is in future tense and in present tense then the tenses in indirect speech do not change For Example:
Direct: She says/will say, ‘I am going’
Indirect: She says/will say she is going.
If habitual actions or factual sentences are used in quotation mark (“) in direct speech, then tenses do not change in indirect speech. For Example:
Direct: He said, ‘We cannot live without air’.
Indirect: He said that we cannot live without air.
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Rule 2 — Present Tense
If present perfect sentence used in quotation mark of direct speech, then it will changed into past perfect for conversion into indirect speech. For example:
Direct: “I have been to Boston”, she told me.
Indirect: She told me that she had been to Boston.
If present continuous sentence used in quotation mark of direct speech, then it will changed into past continuous for conversion into indirect speech. For example:
Direct: “I am playing the guitar”, she explained.
Indirect: She explained that she was playing the guitar.
If present simple sentence used in quotation mark of direct speech, then it
