Direct and Indirect Speech

1.0Preface

You may often be required to report what you have heard somewhere. There are two ways of doing that. You can reproduce the exact words of the speaker or report the speaker without quoting his exact words. So there are two ways of saying the same thing.

Direct : The girl said, "I am very sorry." Indirect : The girl said that she was very sorry.

Direct : The policeman asked the beggar, "Where do you live?" Indirect : The policeman inquired the beggar where he lived.

When we quote the actual words of a speaker, we put them in inverted commas (" "). This is called 'Direct Speech'.

When we report what the speaker said without quoting his exact words, we do not use inverted commas. This is called 'Indirect Speech'.Let us compare the two ways of speaking.

Reporting verb

The verbs 'says', 'said', 'will say' which introduce the reported speech generally come before the inverted commas are called the 'Reporting verbs'. Things to Remember in Indirect Speech (a) Inverted commas (" ") are not used. (b) The comma (, ) separating the reporting verb from the Reported speech is removed. (c) The conjunction 'that' is generally used after the reporting verb. (d) The tense of the Reporting verb is never changed. (e) Question mark (?) and the Exclamation mark (!) are not used. (f) The Interrogative, the Imperative and the Exclamatory sentences are changed to the form of Assertive. (g) The rules of the sequence of Tenses, change in personal pronouns and words showing nearness are to be followed.

2.0Direct Speech into Indirect Speech

Rules for changing Direct Speech into Indirect Speech For the sake of understanding we may broadly divide the rules of changing direct speech into indirect speech in two parts.

• General rules applicable to all kinds of sentences.
• Specific rules applicable to specific kind of sentences.

General rules and method of changing sentences into indirect speech.

I. Ascertain the tense of the 'Reporting verb'. (a) If the reporting verb is in present or future tense, the tense of reported speech remains unchanged. (b) If the reporting verb is in past tense, the tense in the reported speech is changed into a corresponding past tense. Exception: If the reported speech expresses a universal truth or a habitual action, its tenses remain unchanged.

• Example: The teacher said, "The sun rises in the east." The teacher said that the sun rises in the east. [The reported speech
  
  is a universal truth.]

II. Change of reporting verb

The following is a list of verbs that can be used to replace reporting verbs in the indirect speech forms:

III. Conjunction 'that' is commonly used while changing into indirect speech.

• Examples: He says, "I am going to Jaipur." (Direct Speech) He says that he is going to Jaipur. (Indirect Speech)

IV. While changing into indirect speech the personal pronouns and possessive determiners are changed as follows.

• Rule I: Personal pronouns and possessive determiners of the first person (I, my, me, our, we, us) in the Reported Speech are changed into (according to) the person of the subject (noun or pronouns) of the reporting verb.
• Example: I said, "I want to talk to my sister."

I said that I wanted to talk to my sister.

• Rule II: Pronouns and possessive determiners of the second person (you, your, you) existing in the Reported speech are changed into (according to) the persons of the object (noun or pronoun) of the Reporting verb. Example:

• He said to me, "You won a prize."

He told me that I had won a prize.

• He said to me, "You want to talk to my sister."

• Rule III: Pronouns of the Third person in the Reported speech undergo no change. Example:

She said, "He works in a factory."

3.0Change the Tense of Narration

• IV. Table showing change of Tense

• V. Change in words or expressions Words indicating nearness are changed into those indicating distance.

4.0Reported Speech based on types of sentences

I. Assertive Sentences

• When the introductory pronoun and the pronoun used by the speaker are the same, no change occurs in indirect speech. Example: We said, "We disagree with it." We said that we disagreed with it.

II. Interrogative Sentences:

Interrogative sentences can be classified into two types: (i) Yes/ No type (ii) Words beginning with wh-words (what, where, which, who, how etc.)

Rules

• The reporting verb is changed into 'ask', 'enquire', 'inquire' or 'demand.'
• 'If' or 'whether' is used to introduce the reported speech if it is a 'yes' or 'no' questions and if it begins with a helping verb - do, does, is, am, are, was, were, has, have, did, had, shall, will, can, could, should, would, may, might, must etc.
• In questions beginning with Wh-words, no conjunction is used, instead the 'Wh-word' itself functions as a conjunction.

Questions beginning with 'Helping verb.'

• (a) Direct : I said to her, "Will you have ironed your clothes?" Indirect : I asked her if she would have ironed her clothes.
• (b) Direct : He said to us, "Has she been spinning since yesterday?" Indirect : He asked us if she had been spinning since the previous day.
• (c) Direct : She said, "Do you like coffee?" Indirect : She asked if I liked coffee.

Sentences Having 'Yes' Or 'No'

• Direct : He said, "Do you not like it?" She said, "Yes."
• Indirect : He asked if she did not like that and she replied in affirmative.

Questions beginning with Interrogative words

• You said to him, "Why are you making mischief?" You asked him why he was making mischief.
• She said to us, "When will you see me again?" She asked us when we would see her again.
• You can also use verbs like think, realize and hope to give people's thoughts. So you can write: Examples: Sally thought Peter was looking rather pale. She realized that he was not well. Peter hoped he wasn't going to be sick.

III. Imperative Sentences

Order change the reporting verb according to the sense as :

• Direct : The teacher said to the boys, "Take out your books and read them silently." Indirect : The teacher ordered the boys to take out their books and read them silently.
• Direct : Mother said to Karuna, "Go to the kitchen and prepare a cup of tea for me." Indirect : Mother ordered Karuna to go to the kitchen and prepare a cup of tea for her.

Request

• Direct : My servant said to me, "Sir, please give me permission to go out for an hour to meet my friend who is ill." Indirect : My servant requested me to allow him to go out for an hour to meet his friend who was ill.

Advice Whenever some advice is given, we change the reporting verb - 'said' into 'advised' and connect the reported speech with 'to' + infinitive (present form of the verb).

Imperatives with 'Let'

• Sentences with 'Let' can be used to express order, request, suggestion and wish.

Example

Direct : She said, "Let's stop now and finish it afterwards." (Suggestion) Indirect : She suggested that we should stop then and finish it afterwards.

Direct : He said, "Let's not do anything about it till we know the facts." Indirect : He suggested that they shouldn't do anything till they knew the facts.

Direct : The Principal said to the peon, "Let the students come in." Indirect : The Principal ordered the peon to allow the students come in.

Direct : He said, "Let them go to their advocate." Indirect : He said that they should go to their advocate.

Direct : Mohan said to his friends, "Let us play cricket on this sweet sunny day." Indirect : Mohan proposed to his friends that they should play cricket on that sweet sunny day.

IV. Exclamatory Sentences

Sentences containing sudden expressions of joy, sorrow, anger, appeal, surprise and contempt are called exclamatory sentences.

Rules:

(1) Change the reporting verb into verbs showing emotions like, appealed, confessed etc. Also use 'with joy', 'with wonder' 'with surprise', 'with disgust', 'with regret' etc. according to the sense of the sentence; as (exclaimed with wonder, cried with joy.) (2) Begin the reported speech with 'that'. (3) If an exclamatory sentence begins with 'what' or 'how', express their sense by using the words 'great', 'big' or 'very' etc. (4) If some sentence is incomplete in Direct form of speech, complete the same in Indirect form of speech.

Examples:

• Direct : Pinki said, "Hurrah! I have passed." Indirect : Pinki exclaimed with joy (or joyfully) that she had passed.
• Direct : She said, "Alas! I have lost my gold ring." Indirect : She exclaimed sorrowfully (or with sorrow) that she had lost her gold ring.
• Direct : Harry said, "How clever I am!" Indirect : Harry exclaimed with wonder that he was very clever.

• Exclamatory sentence is changed into Assertive Sentence.

Recall

• Direct speech repeats, or quotes, the exact words spoken.
• In direct speech, the words spoken by the speaker are placed in quotation marks (" ").
• Reported or indirect speech is usually used to talk about the past, so we normally change the tense of the words spoken.
• The change of the pronouns and the change of time expressions in Reported Speech.
• Usually 'that' connector is used to introduce the Reported Speech.
• In what, where, why, who, when or how question, we use the question word to report the question.
• In yes/no questions, we use 'if 'or 'whether' to report the question.
• In imperative sentences 'to' is used to introduce the Reported Speech.