·
Direct
speech
Saying exactly what someone has said is
called direct speech (sometimes called quoted speech). Here what a person says
appears within quotation (“…”) and should be word for word.
·
Indirect
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 the 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.
·
Example
NO.
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Direct speech
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Indirect speech
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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He said, “The woman is coming.”
He said, “The woman may come.”
Ali said, “I will do it or never.”
He said to me, “Where are you going?”
He asked me, “Can you come along?”
He said to me, “Don’t come late.”
|
He said the woman was coming.
He said that the woman might come.
Ali said that he would do it now or never.
He asked me where I was going.
He asked me if I could come along.
He asked me not to come late.
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