{"id":73818,"date":"2020-04-06T09:55:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T09:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73818"},"modified":"2020-04-06T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T09:55:44","slug":"how-to-change-direct-speech-into-indirect-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/how-to-change-direct-speech-into-indirect-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Change Direct Speech Into Indirect Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are two main ways of reporting people\u2019s thoughts, words, beliefs etc.<\/p>\n<h3>Direct speech<\/h3>\n<p>We can repeat or quote the exact words spoken. This kind of reporting is called\u00a0<b>direct speech.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She said, \u201cI am going.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe soup is too hot!\u201d cried little Einstein.<\/li>\n<li>He said, \u201cI want to go home.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Indirect (reported) speech<\/h3>\n<p>We can make a speaker&#8217;s words or thoughts part of our sentence, using\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/common-errors-with-conjunctions\/\">conjunctions<\/a>\u00a0(e.g. that) and changing pronouns,\u00a0tenses\u00a0and other words when necessary. This kind of reporting is called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/direct-and-indirect-speech-basic-rules\/\"><b>indirect speech\u00a0<\/b>or\u00a0<b>reported speech.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Compare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She said, \u201cI might bring a friend to the party.\u201d (Direct speech)<\/li>\n<li>She said that she might bring a friend to the party. (Indirect speech)<\/li>\n<li>Bill said, \u201cI don\u2019t like this party.\u201d (Direct speech)<\/li>\n<li>Bill said that he didn\u2019t like the party. (Indirect speech)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Rules for indirect speech<\/h3>\n<p>There are some grammatical differences between direct and indirect speech. These changes are mostly natural and logical, and it is not necessary to learn complicated rules about indirect speech in English.<\/p>\n<p>Compare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John (on Saturday evening): I\u00a0<b>don\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0like\u00a0<b>this<\/b>\u00a0party. I\u00a0<b>want\u00a0<\/b>to go home\u00a0<b>now.<\/b><\/li>\n<li>Peter (on Sunday morning): John\u00a0<b>said<\/b>\u00a0that he\u00a0<b>didn\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0like\u00a0<b>the<\/b>\u00a0party, and he\u00a0<b>wanted<\/b>\u00a0to go home\u00a0<b>right away.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Dropping that<\/h3>\n<p>The conjunction\u00a0<b>that<\/b>\u00a0is often dropped, especially after common reporting verbs (e.g. say, think) in informal speech.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She said (that) she has had enough.<\/li>\n<li>I think (that) you are probably right.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>That\u00a0<\/b>cannot be dropped after certain verbs (e.g. reply, telegraph, shout).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She\u00a0<b>shouted that\u00a0<\/b>she was busy. (NOT She shouted she was busy.)<\/li>\n<li>I\u00a0<b>replied that\u00a0<\/b>I was not coming. (NOT I replied I was not coming.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two main ways of reporting people\u2019s thoughts, words, beliefs etc. Direct speech We can repeat or quote the exact words spoken. This kind of reporting is called\u00a0direct speech. She said, \u201cI am&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2479,34,2480,288],"class_list":["post-73818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-direct-and-indirect-speech","tag-direct-speech","tag-indirect-speech","tag-reported-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73819,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73818\/revisions\/73819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}