Indirect or reported speech

Hi and welcome to another great lesson with New English Academy. I’m your guide, Giles Parker, and today we’re going to look at how to use indirect speech to report or say what someone else said. There are a couple of really useful rules you need to remember when you tell someone what someone else said. For example, verb tenses change, pronouns and here-and-now-type words also change. AND you need to use a special group of verbs called reporting verbs. Phew! It’s a bit tricky and that is why this lesson doesn’t focus on how to make questions – we’ll save that for the next lesson. Our comprehension text today reports the meeting between Paola who is suffering from cancer, her district nurse Stefania and her daughter Katia. Cancer sucks and Paola, Stefania and Katia talk about what they can do to help Paola live at home and be as independent as possible. This lesson was requested by Iolanda in Brazil and is aimed at advanced level students but beginners and intermediate level students can still learn from it. You can get the full course including the interactive comprehension lesson and comprehension test, the interactive grammar and vocabulary lessons and fun online language-learning games at our website, www.newenglishacademy.com. Don’t forget to check out the free courses in the course catalogue too. Finally, let me know if there is something YOU want to study, and I’ll make a podcast and an online course for you too.

Grammar explanation

How do you tell one friend what your other friend said, or decided or thought? Well, there are two different ways to do this. You can use direct speech which uses the exact same words, like a quote, or 2) you can use indirect or reported speech.

With direct speech you say exactly what the other person said. You introduce what she said with a reporting verb such as say or tell. If you write what someone said, then you have use quotation marks or speech marks to show where the quote starts and stops. Here are a couple of examples of direct speech:

· She said, “It’s going to rain again.â€

· “That’s the third time this week,†she added.

Did you notice the reporting verbs? To say and to add are reporting verbs that introduce what the person says.

But how about when you don’t want to use the speaker’s exact words, or, more importantly, when you are speaking, not writing, English? Well, this is when you use indirect speech. Indirect speech is a report, not a quote. It doesn’t use the exact same words, though it can. When you write it you don’t have to put quotation marks around the report.  You still have to introduce what the other person said with a reporting verb, and there is a free list of reporting verbs that you can download from this course on the website.

The report of what the person says becomes a noun phrase or a noun clause which is usually introduced by that. Do you remember the two examples just now where the girl talked about the rain? Here they are again as indirect speech, i.e.; now I’m reporting what she said:

· She said that it’s going to rain again.

· She added that it’s the third time this week.

Did you see where the noun phrase is? It’s going to rain is the noun phrase in the first sentence and It’s the third time this week is the noun phrase in the second sentence.

Are you still with me? OK. I mentioned earlier that things like verbs and pronouns change when you use indirect speech. Usually you have to check the tense of the verb in the direct speech and THEN change the tense of the verb in the noun clause. Usually, if the verb in the quote or direct speech is in the simple present then the verb in the noun clause changes to the simple past. For example:

· Direct speech: “I’m hungry,†said the student.

· Indirect speech: The student said that she was hungry.

Did you see what happened there? The to be verb changed from present simple I am to she was. And maybe you can see another change there too. Here’s another example:

· Direct speech: “I finished the medicine yesterday,†he said.

· Indirect speech: He said that he had finished the medicine yesterday.

Did you see how the simple past finished in the direct speech changed to past perfect had finished? The same is true for future forms. For example:

· Direct speech: He said, “I’ll do it later.â€

· Indirect speech: He said he would do it later.

But, I’m always saying usually. I have to add a HUGE caveat, or a warning, here. The rule that the verb changes tense when you use indirect speech depends on if you are writing or speaking and, if what someone said is still true now. In spoken English, the verb DOESN’T have to change, so a lot of the time, you will hear the same tense in the noun clause. This is especially true when we are reporting what someone said about the future, or when we are reporting something that happened very recently. For example:

· Direct speech: He said, “I’m going to see a doctor about this.â€

· Indirect speech: He said he’s going to see a doctor about this.

· Direct speech:  She said, ‘I’ve had enough to eat, thanks.â€

· Indirect speech: She said she’s had enough to eat.

I think you can see that pronouns change too. This is because the speaker is changing. So, for example:

· Direct speech: Katia said, “I’ll look in on Paola every day.â€

· Indirect speech: Katia said she would look in on Paola every day.

· Direct speech: “We are all here to help you,†Stefania explained.

· Indirect speech: Stefania explained that they were all there to help her.

Lastly, here-and-now-type words change too. This is because the time and sometimes the place in the report are different from the place and time in the direct speech. For example:

· Direct speech: Paola said, “I want to be as independent here for as long as possible.â€

· Indirect speech: Paola said she wanted to be as independent there for as long as possible.

· Direct speech: Stefania said, “You shouldn’t be left alone in this way.â€

· Indirect speech: Stefania said that she shouldn’t be left alone in that way.

So, to summarize, you use indirect speech when you want to report what someone said. You use a reporting verb to introduce the noun phrase and in written English more than in spoken English you change the tense of the verb. In spoken English you can relax a bit more. I guess that depends on how accurate you want to be.

Now, we’re going to listen to, or read, if you like, a comprehension text that gives a report of a meeting between Paola who is suffering from cancer, her district nurse Stefania who is helping her, and Paola’s daughter Katia. As you listen, try to find all the examples of indirect speech. Then, check for all the different reporting verbs. Don’t forget, you can get the whole course including an interactive grammar lesson and grammar test, the comprehension lesson and vocabulary games at the website and other free courses at the website, www.newenglishacademy.com

Comprehension Text: Living with cancer

Cancer affects everyone some time, somewhere. We all know someone who has survived or succumbed to this horrible disease. The process can be brutal and quick, or it can be drawn-out and slow. Seventy-six year old Paola has a slow-growing cancer in her lungs. At the moment, Paola is living on her own and has said that she wants to stay independent and at home for as long as possible. Her daughter’s family look in on her every day and the district nurse comes and checks up on her every week. Here are the notes from the meeting last week between Paola, the district nurse Stefania and Paola’s daughter, Katia.  

Stefania explained that they were all there to talk about Paola’s current and future needs and asked Paola what she would like to discuss and plan for that week. Paola replied she’d like to talk about everything. She said that recently some things had been getting more difficult for her to do on her own, like the ironing or hanging out her washing. She said she could just about manage at the moment but she got tired easily.  Stefania asked Katia if she could come over and help a bit more with these basic chores. Katia replied that she had been very busy with work and her own family recently, but she would try to find time to help her mother more.

Paola also said that she was beginning to have trouble doing her shopping. She said she used to look forward to going out to the shops a couple of times a week but recently she hadn’t been so enthusiastic about it. The groceries weighed a lot, and she often felt exhausted just walking around town. Stefania told her she didn’t have to go out so often, and that she could get help from a local community service that would bring food over for her once a week if she gave them a list. Katia said Paola shouldn’t go out shopping if she didn’t feel up to it. Instead, she said she’d pick up extra groceries when she did her shopping and bring them over for her. She said it wouldn’t be a problem. She said that if she had known the shopping was becoming a burden for her mother she would have got the groceries for her earlier.

Stefania asked Paola about her pain. She said she often felt terrible aches in her chest and that she had trouble sleeping. She also had trouble with all the medicine she had to take. She had forgotten to take some of the medicine at the right time once or twice so she had combined two lots at the same time. Stefania pointed out that that was very dangerous and that she shouldn’t have done that. Katia proposed a check-list of times and medicines that Paola could read and check off when she had taken them. Paola said she would try harder in future to remember what drugs to take and when to take them.

 

Katia reiterated that her mother wanted to stay at home for as long as possible, and asked the nurse when they would have to make a decision about moving Paola in to her daughter’s family’s house. Stefania said it was difficult to say, but generally, patients are moved out of their own homes and into family homes or care-homes when they can no longer look after themselves safely. Usually, this happens soon after some kind of crisis, like a fall, or an accident at home. But it was good that they were already thinking and talking about it as this meant they could plan the move rather than have to make sudden decisions in a short period of time. Stefania assured them that Paola would be safe at home for a while yet, but that it was a good idea to have a plan ready for when Paola could no longer be independent.  Everyone agreed it had been a useful meeting.