Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Department of English
DIRECT & INDIRECT NARRATION
Reporting Speech Reported Speech
Subject Object
Change of Pronoun in Reported speech
1st person pronoun According to subject of reporting
speech
2nd person pronoun According to object of reporting
speech
3rd person pronoun Unchangeable (no change)
CHANGE OF TENSES IN REPORTED SPEECH
For reported speech, all the tenses of column A are changed into
the tenses of column B.
Column A Column B
Present Indefinite Past Indefinite
He said “I play football” He said that he played football.
Present Continuous Past Continuous
She said to me “I am reading a She told me that she was
novel”. reading a novel.
Present Perfect Past Perfect
They said to me “we have won They told me that they had
the match”. won the match.
Will/Shall Would/Should
We said “he will speak truth”. We said that he would speak
truth.
Can/May Could/Might
He said to me “I can help you”. He told me that he could help
me.
CHANGE OF TENSES IN REPORTED SPEECH
For reported speech, all the tenses of column A are changed into the
tenses of column B.
Column A Column B