Reported Speech

Day 1: Statements (1)

John: The lady in pink is a very famous storyteller.

Fanny: Oh! I see.

When we want to put down what John said to Fanny, we can use two ways:

1. Direct speech 直接引語

John said to Fanny, ‘The lady in pink is a very famous storyteller.’

2. Reported Speech (Indirect Speech) 轉述（簡介引語）

John told Fanny that the lady in pink was a very famous storyteller.

In story writing, when we want to make our story vivid, we will use direct speech to bring life to the characters. However, we do need to report things to other people, for example, we need to tell our mother what happened in our lessons; we need to report to the teacher what we have been doing; in these cases, we use reported speech. 在故事中，為了使故事更生動活潑，我們通常使用直接引語。而當我們要向別人轉述某件事情的時候。我們必須要用間接引語。

How can we change a direct speech to a reported speech?

Let’s start from statements (hyperlink statements to Unit 1 Day 4)

First. If you have forgotten what statements are, click the words and the Internet will bring you back to Unit One.

Statements (1)

If you want to report a statement, you have to remember to change at least 3 things.

如果你想將一個陳述句轉述出來，至少要做三處修改。

1. ‘Said to’ becomes ‘told’. Commas and quotation marks are deleted.

將‘Said to’改成‘told’，去掉逗號和問號。

We usually change ‘said to’ in direct speech to ‘told’ in reported speech. But we can use ‘said’ in both speeches. The use of conjunction ‘that’ is optional.

Direct Speech: May said to her mother, ‘We have to go home.’

Reported Speech: May told her mother (that) they had to go home.

Direct Speech: May said, ‘We have to go home.’

Indirect Speech: May said (that) they had to go home.

2. First/second/third person pronouns change to third person

不論第一，第二還是第三人稱都改為第三人稱。

Direct Speech: May said to Peter, ‘You make me very upset.’

Reported Speech: May told Peter that he made her very upset.

Notes: The changes of pronouns depends on situations. If the person who reports belongs to the group, ‘we’ can be used too. If a person reports his/her own events, ‘I’ can be used too.

Direct speech: May said to all of us, ‘We have to go home.’

Reported speech: May told all of us that we had to go home.

3. Present tenses change to Past Tenses

現在時要改為過去時。

When you report a direct speech, you usually need to change the present tenses in the direct speech into past tenses.

Direct Speech: May said, ‘I want to cry.’

Reported Speech: May said that she wanted to cry.

Notes: When the reporting verb (say, tell, etc) is in the present tense, the tense in reported speech does not change.

Direct Speech: My mother always says to me, ‘You are my great daughter.’

Reported Speech: My mother always tells me that I am her great daughter.’

For details on the changes in tenses and other necessary changes, go to Day 2!!