Direct and Indirect Speech

• English Grammar
• Direct and Indirect Speech
• Direct Speech | Indirect Speech
Tense Change | Time Change | Pronoun Change
Reporting Verbs | Use of 'That'
• We often have to give information about what people say or think. In order to do this you can use direct or quoted speech, or indirect or reported speech.
• Direct Speech / Quoted 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.
• For example:
• She said, "Today's lesson is on presentations."
• or
• "Today's lesson is on presentations," she said.
•
• Indirect Speech / Reported Speech
• Indirect speech (sometimes called 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.
• For example:
Direct speech Indirect speech
"I'm going to the cinema", he said. He said he was going to the cinema.