'Go' and 'like' for indirect speech

Hi and welcome to another great lesson from New English Academy. I'm your host Giles Parker and today we're going to look at one of the most useful grammar points that will make you sound immediately like a native speaker. Amazingly, this grammar point isn’t in any of the conventional grammar textbooks for English learners, which is kind of strange because it will help you speak and understand English so much better if you can use it. If you can find this grammar point in a book for EFL or ESL learners please let me know.

So, what am I talking about? Basically, what I’m talking about is another way of saying what someone said WITHOUT having to do all the verb tense changes, pronoun changes, etc that you have to do when you use reported or indirect speech. Oh, no. This new way is so much easier and more efficient because it also allows you to do other things at the same time as introduce reported speech. You can also show what you or the other person was thinking or feeling about what happened. And, it can show your opinion NOW about the situation too, and generally it lets you tell or act out a story so the other person can understand you better. So, what is this fantastic, multi-functional grammar point that is so easy to use? A lot of grammar dictators and old school teachers aren’t going to like this but… Basically, just use go or to be + like to introduce the direct speech instead of a reporting verb. And that amazing little grammar point is what we’re going to talk about in this podcast. I'll post a free interactive grammar lesson for you to practice this on the website at www.newenglishacademy.com. And, if you have any ideas or requests for things you want to learn just send me an email and I'll make a podcast and an interactive lesson for you.

One of the many things we want to do in a foreign language is to tell someone about the past. Often, we want to tell a story about something that happened and we want to include what other people thought or said. I talked about how to do this in last week's podcast which looked at reported or indirect speech. And, you know, using reported or indirect speech isn't such an easy thing to do. Can you remember the rules to do it? There are a lot of things you have to change in reported or indirect speech. When you say what someone else said, you have to change the verb tenses because the time has changed, and you have to change the pronouns because obviously the speaker is different. And you have to change the here-and-now-type words too again because the speaker and the time and the place is different. But...you don't have to make verb tense changes if what you are speaking about is recent and hasn't changed since. Lastly, you have to introduce what was said with a reporting verb like say, or tell. Do you remember all this? Phew! That is a lot to remember or figure out every time you want to tell someone what someone else said, which is why I put it on the website as an advanced course.

But, I was thinking - do we always do it this way? Is there another, easier way to report speech? Then it hit me! Of course - a lot of people don't worry so much about making all these changes nowadays. There is an easier way to speak English like a native without getting confused by verb changes, reporting verbs and pronouns, etc. In fact, two different ways but they share the same rules and they make everything so much easier. You can use go or to be like as ways of introducing someone else's speech.

Take a look at this example from Frank Zappa's 1982 classic 'Valley Girl' which exaggerates how girls from a part of California talk. Don't worry about all the examples of like just focus on the one that introduces speech. Also look for the example of go to introduce speech.

So like I go into this like salon place, you know?
And I wanted like to get my toenails done
And the lady like goes., oh my God, your toenails
Are like so GRODY
It was like really embarrassing
She's like OH MY GOD, like BAG THOSE TOENAILS
I'm like sure...
She goes, uh, I don't know if I can handle this, you know?
I was like really embarrassed...

Did you see where the speech is introduced by goes and by go? Did you also see how the verb tenses and pronouns don't change at all? No changes – just say exactly what the other person said! That's what makes using go and like so easy and useful.

Here are a couple more examples:

She said, "Do you want to go out clubbing this weekend?" And he's like "Do I ever!"

Or:

My boss got angry because I was late and I'm like, "Whatever". He goes, "Why don't you phone and let us know you're going to be late?" And I’m like, “Whateverâ€.

Or:

She said, "Do you want to want come out tomorrow?"

And I'm like, "That would be cool. What do you want to do?"

And she goes, "We could go to the beach?"

So why are they so useful? Well, go and like do a lot of things all at the same time. First, they introduce what someone says, just like other reporting verbs. But they also introduce what the speaker THINKS or FEELS about the situation too. This means that the person might not actually have said it, but she felt or thought it then instead. They also make the report about what happened so much more dramatic, more NOW and less a thing that happened in the past. The story becomes something that involves the speaker and the listener now which makes it more powerful.  Often go and like also introduce some kind of body language or gestures and other signs of what the speaker feels or felt about the story. It is almost like the speaker is acting the story for us and this might make the story more appealing and perhaps easier to understand - which I guess is the standard for good communication.

Go and like are really easy to use. Just make sure the subject lines up with go or the to be verb. So for example, if you want to say what a guy said, you say He goes.... or He's like... and then you say what he said, or thought or felt. You don't even have to change the tense of go or the to be verb, really, but you can if you want. I mean, you can say He was like.... when you're talking about the past or, She's going to be like... when you report what someone might say in the future. But I don't think that is a hard and fast rule. Most people just use the present simple, He's like... Best of all, you don't have to change any tenses, or pronouns or here-and-now-type words in the reported speech phrase which makes go and  to be + like so much easier than normal reported speech. This is all because we want to keep the story right here between us now, NOT distant and staying in the past. 

 

There is a small problem with using go and like to report speech in that older, perhaps 'higher-class' speakers of English might judge people who use them as lazy or uneducated and as people who can't use or speak the language correctly. However, you shouldn't let that worry you. I think it is a different way of looking at how people talk about things that happened. I think it is kind of exciting that we can make the past closer to us when we use these simple verbs and furthermore that we are seeing a change in English language that is taking place right now. Now, why don't grammar text books for EFL and ESL learners teach it?