REPORTED SPEECH4ºESO

By Estela Albaladejo Martínez

Let’s learn it through music!

■ The Scientist- Coldplay■ WHAT’S THE SONG ABOUT?

■ WHERE CAN YOU FIND REPORTED SPEECH?

“Nobody said it was easyIt's such a shame for us to partNobody said it was easyNo one ever said it would be thishard”

When to use it■ If you want to repeat what somebody else said, wrote or thought, you have two

options: direct reported speech or indirect reported speech. In direct reportedspeech, you put what the person said in quotation marks (“”):

Nobody said, “It’s easy.”No-one said, “It will be hard”.

■ Indirect reported speech is where you change the speaker’s original words byindirectly reporting what they said. Such sentences are made up of two parts: a reporting clause and a reported clause:

Nobody said, “It’s easy” (Direct)Nobody said it was easy. (Indirect- from the song)

REPORTING CLAUSE REPORTED CLAUSE

TENSE CHANGES■ AS WE ARE REPORTING SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST, WE NORMALLY HAVE

TO GO ONE STEP BACK TO THE PAST TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE REPORTING VERB THAT WE ARE USING. SO THE CORRESPONDING CHANGES ARE THE FOLLOWING:

DIRECT SPEECH REPORTED SPEECH

Present Simple Past SimplePresent Continuous Past ContinuousWill/Would WouldAm/is/are going to Was/Were going toPast Simple Past PerfectPresent Perfect Past PerfectCan CouldMay MightMust Had to

CHANGES TO DEMONSTRATIVES, ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS

DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH

This/These That/ThoseNow ThenHere ThereToday That dayYesterday The previous day

DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH

Next The followingLast The previousA week ago A week beforeTomorrow The following day

EXAMPLESTENSE DIRECT SPEECH INDIRECT SPEECH

PRESENT SIMPLE I eat ice-cream today She said (that) she ate ice-creamthat day

PRESENT CONTINUOUS I am living in London She said (that) she was living in London

WILL I’ll see you later She said (that) she would seeme later

PAST SIMPLE I bought a car She said (that) she had bought a car

PRESENT PERFECT I haven’t seen Julie She said (that) she hadn’t seenJulie

PAST PERFECT I had taken English lessonsbefore.

She said (that) she had takenEnglish lessons before.

MUST I must study at the weekend She said (that) she had to studyat the weekend.

CAN I can speak perfect English She said (that) she could speakperfect English

LET’S PRACTISE IT

■ GO TO PAGE 73 OF YOUR STUDENT’S BOOK

REPORTED QUESTIONS(WH-QUESTIONS)■ To transform a wh-question into indirect reported speech, we move the wh-word to

the beginning of the reported clause and use the affirmative, not the interrogative.

He asked, “What am I doing here? (Direct)

He asked what he was doing there (Indirect)

REPORTED QUESTIONS(YES-NO QUESTIONS)

■ If we have a “yes”-”no” question, we use “if” or “whether” instead of the wh-question after the reporting verb and, then, the affirmative. A good example of thisis the song "Somewhere only we know” by Keane.

Tim from Keane asked, “Is this place that I’ve been dreaming of?” (Direct)

Tim from Keane asked if/whether that was the place he’d been dreaming of (Indirect)

REPORTED REQUESTS AND COMMANDSTO ASK/TELL + OBJECT + (NOT) + INFINITIVE WITH “TO”

■ The difference between requests (peticiones) and commands (órdenes) is thatacommands are orders and requestes are not. For indirect reported requests, weusually use the verb “to ask+ object (him/her)+ (not)+ infinitive with “to”. Forindirect reported commands, we usually use the verb “to tell+ object (him/her)(not)+ infinitive with “to”.

Let’s take this example from David Bowie’s Space Oddity:

Ground control said to Major Tom, “Take your protein pills”. (Direct)Ground control asked Major Tom to take his protein pills. (Indirect- request)Ground control told Major Tom to take his protein pills. (Indirect- order)

LET’S PRACTISE IT

■ GO TO PAGE 75 OF YOUR STUDENT’S BOOK

LET’S GATHER EVERYTHING!

■ Click here to see a SUMMARY

■ CLICK HERE TO SEE AN EXAMPLE IN CONTEXT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

■ Isard, N & Vivas, D (2016) All you need is English. Barcelona: Planeta

■ Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/?hl=es&gl=ES)