Hey..guys after a long time I came with an English lesson. Let's learn...
to report (verb): to tell somebody what
you have heard or seen
direct speech
reported speech
He said: "I love you." He
said that he loved me.
If we want to say what somebody has
said, we basically have two options:
1. We
can use the person's exact words in quotation marks "..." (direct
speech)
2. We
can change the person's words into our own words (reported speech)
Reported speech is not really
difficult. It is more a matter of logic and common sense. You probably have the
same concept in your own language, where you use your own words to say what
somebody has said or written.
In this lesson we learn about reported
speech, the structure that we use when we report what another person has said.
So now we will look at:
• Reported
Statements
• Backshift
• Time
and Place
• Reported
Questions
• Reported
Requests
• Reported
Orders
Reported speech is called
"indirect speech" by some people. Other people regard reported speech
simply as one form of indirect speech. Other forms are, for example:
• questions-within-questions:
Can you tell me if they are expensive?
• mental
processes: He believes that politics is a dirty game.
Reported Statements
direct statement
|
reported statement
|
He said: "I am
sick."
|
He said that he was
sick.
|
Reported
statements are one form of reported speech.
We
usually introduce reported statements with "reporting verbs" such as
"say" or "tell":
• He said (that)...
• He told me (that)...
When
we report a statement, we can say "He said that..." or simply
"He said...". Both are possible. "He said that..." is more
formal.
When
we use our own words to report speech, there are one or two things that we
sometimes change:
• pronouns may need to change to
reflect a different perspective
• tense sometimes has to go back one
tense (eg, present becomes past) - this is called
backshift
|
backshift
|
|
|
|
direct statement
|
He said,
|
"I
|
am
|
sick."
|
reported statement
|
He said (that)
|
he
|
was
|
sick.
|
There
are sometimes other things too that we may need to change, such as time or
place. Look at these examples:
|
backshift
|
|
time
|
|
|
direct statement
|
Jane said,
|
"I
|
was
|
sick
|
yesterday."
|
reported statement
|
Jane said (that)
|
she
|
had been
|
sick
|
the day before.
|
|
|
|
backshift
|
|
place
|
direct statement
|
She said,
|
"It
|
is
|
hot in
|
here."
|
reported statement
|
She said (that)
|
it
|
was
|
hot in
|
there.
|
We also sometimes need to think about the
third person singular "s":
|
|
pronoun
|
3rd person
singular
|
|
direct statement
|
Mary said,
|
"I
|
work
|
in London."
|
reported statement
|
Mary said (that)
|
she
|
workS
|
in London
|
.
Notice that in the above example, we do
not change the tense. Usually, with the present simple, if something is still
true now - she still works in London - we don't need to change it.
Typical reporting verbs for statements:
say, tell, mention, inform
• He
said that... OR He said...
• He
told me that... OR He told me...
• He
mentioned that...
• He
informed me that...
Now we will look in more detail at
Backshift →
Backshift
direct
|
reported
|
He said: "I feel
sad."
|
He said that he felt
sad.
|
In simple terms, the structure of reported
speech is:
reporting
clause + conjuntion + reported clause
reporting clause
|
conjunction
|
reported clause
|
John said
|
(that)
|
he was hungry.
|
original
words:
"I am hungry."
We sometimes change the tense of the
reported clause by moving it back one tense. For example, present simple goes
back one tense to past simple. We call this change "backshift".
When do we use backshift?
We use backshift when it is logical to
use backshift. So, for example, if John said "I am hungry" two
minutes ago and I am now telling his sister, I might NOT use backshift (because
John is still hungry):
• John
just said that he is hungry.
But if John said "I am
hungry" yesterday, I would likely use backshift:
• Yesterday,
John said that he was hungry.
[We hope that John has
eaten since yesterday ;-)
So we use backshift SOMETIMES but not always.
And WHEN we use backshift, here's how it works with these common tenses and
modals:
backshift
present simple
|
→
|
past simple
|
present continuous
|
→
|
past continuous
|
past simple
|
→
|
past perfect
|
present perfect
|
||
past continuous
|
→
|
past perfect continuous
|
can
|
→
|
could
|
may
|
|
might
|
will
|
|
would
|
shall
|
|
should
|
We NEVER use backshift when the
original words are:
NO backshift
past perfect
could
might
would
should
Remember:
• If
a situation is still true, backshift is optional.
• For
a general truth there is no need for backshift.
This is to learn and sharpen your English.
If you got something from this note, please dont forget to comment below.....
ThankS!
Anu with PandA.
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