Important Rules Relating to Reported Speech

Quoting the exact words of the speaker is called Direct Narration. Reporting the words of speaker without quoting his exact words is called Indirect Narration. There are two ways to convey a message of a person or the words spoken by a person or the other person.

1. Direct Narration 
2. Indirect Narration 

Direct Narration

In Direct Narration, the words of the speaker is exactly said in his words what someone says. What a speaker says, his words are mentioned within the quotation marks (‘…..’ or “…..”). The speaker’s words should be unaltered. Eg:

• She said, “Today lesson is on presentations”. 
• I said to her, ‘You are wise and great’. 

Indirect Narration

In Indirect Narration, the words of the speaker is not exactly said in his words. What a speaker says, his words are not mentioned within the quotation marks. The speaker’s words will be altered slightly. Eg:

• She said that today’s lesson was on presentation. 
• I said to her that she was wise and great. 

Note: Use ‘that’ after removing inverted commas.
Change ‘is’ into ‘was’.

Reporter/Reporting verb/Reported Speech

Reporter: The speaker or narrator is called the reporter.
Reporting verb: The verb used by the reporter is called reporting verb.
Reported Speech: Sentence enclosed within inverted commas is called reported speech. It always begins with a capital letter.
Eg: She said to me, “I am learning computer”.
In this sentence, Reporter is She; Reporting verb is said and Reported Speech is I am learning computer.
While we change a narration from direct to indirect, inverted commas are removed.

Some important rules

Rule 1. 

• First of all ascertain the tense of the Reporting Verb.
• If the reporting verb is in Present or Future Tense, the tense of Reported speech remains unchanged.

Reporting Verb in Direct Speech	Reporting Verb in Indirect Speech
Say	Say
Says	Says
Say to	Tell
Says to	Tells
Will say	Will say
Will say to	Will tell
Said	Said
Said to	Told/asked

Rule 2.

If the reporting verb is in Past, the tense of the reported speech changes as the following :
Tense of Reported Speech

S. No	Direct Narration	Indirect Narration
1	Present Indefinite	Past Indefinite
2	Present Continuous	Past Continuous
3	Present Perfect	Past Perfect
4	Present Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous
5	Past Indefinite	Past Perfect
6	Past Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous
7	Past Perfect	No change of tense
8	Past Perfect Continuous	No change of tense
Change in Future Tenses (Reported Speech)
1	Will/shall	Would/should
2	Can	Could
3	May	Might
4	Could/should/would/might	No change

Rule 3.

When the Reporting Verb is in Past, words denoting time or place in reported speech change as following:

S. No	Direct Narration	Indirect Narration
1	This	That
2	These	Those
3	Here	There
4	Hence	Thence
5	Hither	Thither
6	Now	Then
7	Ago	Before
8	Thus	So
9	Today	That day
10	Tomorrow	The next day/the following day
11	Yesterday	The previous day
12	Last week/month/year	The previous week/month/year
13	The last fortnight	The previous fortnight
14	The day before yesterday	The day before the previous day.

Rule 4.

If the Reported Speech contains universal truth, proverb, mathematical fact, historical fact, habitual act, an expression of morality or an unchanged fact, the tense of the reported speech remains unchanged. Eg:

• Direct: He said, “The sun rises in the East”.
• Indirect: He said that the sun rises in the East.
• Direct: The teacher said, “God helps those who helps themselves”.
• Indirect: The said that God helps those who helps themselves.

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