Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

2 James is going out.

3 They were watching the film.

4 He’s feeding the cat.

5 Will Su buy the food?

6 I’m writing the letter.

7 The bus is leaving early.

8 I wasn’t working in the office.

9 Did Henry see the doctor?

10 Are you phoning them?

Language point 86 – reported speech

When we report what someone said, we can either quote their actual words (DIRECT SPEECH):

Kath said: ‘I’m not coming’

or we can incorporate the words into one sentence: Kath said( that) she wasn’t comingThis second option is called REPORTED SPEECH (or INDIRECT SPEECH).

The most common verbs to introduce reported speech are saidsεd and told/təυld/ – and when we use these, we change the TENSE of the verb in the words that we’re reporting:

245

Actual words

Reported speech

present

→

past simple

present perfect

→

past perfect

past simple

→

past perfect

future

→

conditional

Here are some examples of each of these:

Actual words

Reported speech

‘We live in Heathfield’

They said( that) they lived in

Heathfield

‘I’ve sold my house’

He said( that) he’d sold his house

‘I went abroad last

She told me( that) she’d gone abroad year’

last year

‘We’ll phone later’

They said( that) they’d phone later

‘We can call a taxi’

They said( that) they could call a taxiNotice that we can use thatafter said/ toldto introduce the reported speech, but we can also , in colloquial English, leave it out. It is more usual to leave it out.

In Dialogues 1 and 2 there are a lot of examples of reported speech – let’s convert some of them back to the actual words : Reported speech

Actual words

She said she’d bought . . .

→

‘I’ve bought . . .’

I said I didn’t know

→

‘I don’t know’

. . . that you’d phone back

→

‘He’ll phone back’

He said he’d be . . .

→

‘I’ll be . . .’

He said he’d broken his leg

→

‘I’ve broken my leg’

Fred told me he wasn’t coming→

‘I’m not coming’

Notice that told has to be followed by a NOUN or a PRONOUN, but said mustn’t be:

He told me he was ill

not

‘He told he was ill’

He said he was ill

not

‘He said me he was ill’

246

And don’t forget that you can use other words to introduce reported speech as well:

asked

thought

answered

replied

Exercise 3

Rewrite these sentences as reported speech – the first one has been done for you.

1 ‘My name is Lisa.’

She said her name was Lisa.

2 ‘I’m twenty-four years old.’

She said ________________ .

3 ‘I live in Brighton.’

She said ________________ .

4 ‘I’ve got two sisters.’

She said ________________ .

5 ‘I’ll be coming to the party.’

She said ________________ .

6 ‘I’ve written a poem.’

She said ________________ .

7 ‘I’ve just joined a yoga class.’

She said ________________ .

8 ‘My favourite food is curry.’

She said ________________ .

9 I hope to see you at the

She said ________________ .

party later.’

10 I’ll take a taxi home.’

She said ________________ .

Exercise 4

Beatrice has changed her mind about everything she told Andy.

Complete Andy’s replies, as in the first example.

1 BEATRICE:

I’m going to the disco tonight.

ANDY:

But you said you weren’t!

2 BEATRICE:

The food in this restaurant is awful.

ANDY:

But you said _____________ wonderful!

3 BEATRICE:

My brother’ll lend me the money for the car.

ANDY:

But you said _______________ !

4 BEATRICE:

We can’t go to Sicily this year.

ANDY:

But you said __________ !

5 BEATRICE:

Dave and Rhoda aren’t coming tonight.

ANDY:

But you said __________ !

247

6 BEATRICE:

Anna doesn’t speak English.

ANDY:

But you said ___________ !

7 BEATRICE:

I haven’t got any money at the moment.

ANDY:

But you said ___________!

8 BEATRICE:

It’ll rain all day tomorrow.

ANDY:

But you said ___________!

9 BEATRICE:

We can take a taxi home later.

ANDY:

But you said ___________!

10 BEATRICE:

Paul’s applying for that new job.

ANDY:

But you said ___________!

Exercise 5

Read these sentences in reported speech and write down what was actually said – the first one is done for you.

1 The doctor told Dave he’d have to stay in bed.

‘You’ll have to stay in bed.’

2 Gerry said it was too late.

_______________________

3 Jenny said it would rain later.

_______________________

4 Pete told Simon he could come along.

_______________________

5 Henry said he’d broken his arm.

_______________________

6 Julie said the box was too heavy for her to lift.

_______________________

7 Keith told Brenda he wouldn’t help her.

_______________________

8 Nigel said he could understand why I was angry.

_______________________

9 I told them I couldn’t help them.

_______________________

10 Shamira said her computer had broken down.

_______________________

248

Language point 87 – ‘that’s why/who/

what . . .’

In Dialogue 2 Paul says about Fred:

I thought he didn’t like heights

and then Mike says:

Maybe that’s why he fell off

We use that’s+ WH-WORD to refer back to something just mentioned.

Mike means:

Maybe[ the fact that Fred doesn’t like heights] is why he fell off

We replace the idea in the square brackets with thatto avoid repeating it.

Be careful!We have seen many examples in recent Language

points of the word thatbeing left out – but when we use that’swith a WH-WORD in this way, we can’t leave it out!

Here are some more examples:

I saw Stuart in Birmingham last week

– Maybe that’s where he’s living now