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Worksheets - handouts

Reported speech

Worksheets - pdf exercises.

• Reported statements - worksheet
• Worksheet - reported questions
• Reported yes/no questions
• Worksheet - reported speech
• Reported speech - exercises pdf
• Indirect speech - exercises
• Reported speech - exercises
• Mixed reported speech 1
• Mixed reported speech 2
• Reported speech 1 
• Reported speech 2  
• Reported speech 3 
• Reported speech 4
• Reported speech 5
• Reported wh- questions
• Reported speech - worksheet 
• Reported commands
• Reported questions
• Reported speech 1
• Reported speech 2
• Reported requests and orders
• Reported speech exercise
• Reported questions - worksheet
• Indirect speech - worksheet
• Worksheets pdf - print
• Grammar worksheets - handouts

Grammar - lessons

• Reported speech - grammar notes
• How to use reported speech - lesson
• Tense changes - grammar

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Reported speech: indirect speech

Indirect speech focuses more on the content of what someone said rather than their exact words. In indirect speech , the structure of the reported clause depends on whether the speaker is reporting a statement, a question or a command.

Indirect speech: reporting statements

Indirect reports of statements consist of a reporting clause and a that -clause. We often omit that , especially in informal situations:

The pilot commented that the weather had been extremely bad as the plane came in to land. (The pilot’s words were: ‘The weather was extremely bad as the plane came in to land.’ )

I told my wife I didn’t want a party on my 50th birthday. ( that -clause without that ) (or I told my wife that I didn’t want a party on my 50th birthday .)

Indirect speech: reporting questions

Reporting yes-no questions and alternative questions.

Indirect reports of yes-no questions and questions with or consist of a reporting clause and a reported clause introduced by if or whether . If is more common than whether . The reported clause is in statement form (subject + verb), not question form:

She asked if [S] [V] I was Scottish. (original yes-no question: ‘Are you Scottish?’ )

The waiter asked whether [S] we [V] wanted a table near the window. (original yes-no question: ‘Do you want a table near the window? )

He asked me if [S] [V] I had come by train or by bus. (original alternative question: ‘Did you come by train or by bus?’ )

Questions: yes-no questions ( Are you feeling cold? )

Reporting wh -questions

Indirect reports of wh -questions consist of a reporting clause, and a reported clause beginning with a wh -word ( who, what, when, where, why, how ). We don’t use a question mark:

He asked me what I wanted.

Not: He asked me what I wanted?

The reported clause is in statement form (subject + verb), not question form:

She wanted to know who [S] we [V] had invited to the party.

Not: … who had we invited …

Who , whom and what

In indirect questions with who, whom and what , the wh- word may be the subject or the object of the reported clause:

I asked them who came to meet them at the airport. ( who is the subject of came ; original question: ‘Who came to meet you at the airport?’ )

He wondered what the repairs would cost. ( what is the object of cost ; original question: ‘What will the repairs cost?’ )

She asked us what [S] we [V] were doing . (original question: ‘What are you doing?’ )

Not: She asked us what were we doing?

When , where , why and how

We also use statement word order (subject + verb) with when , where, why and how :

I asked her when [S] it [V] had happened (original question: ‘When did it happen?’ ).

Not: I asked her when had it happened?

I asked her where [S] the bus station [V] was . (original question: ‘Where is the bus station?’ )

Not: I asked her where was the bus station?

The teacher asked them how [S] they [V] wanted to do the activity . (original question: ‘How do you want to do the activity?’ )

Not: The teacher asked them how did they want to do the activity?

Questions: wh- questions

Indirect speech: reporting commands

Indirect reports of commands consist of a reporting clause, and a reported clause beginning with a to -infinitive:

The General ordered the troops to advance . (original command: ‘Advance!’ )

The chairperson told him to sit down and to stop interrupting . (original command: ‘Sit down and stop interrupting!’ )

We also use a to -infinitive clause in indirect reports with other verbs that mean wanting or getting people to do something, for example, advise, encourage, warn :

They advised me to wait till the following day. (original statement: ‘You should wait till the following day.’ )

The guard warned us not to enter the area. (original statement: ‘You must not enter the area.’ )

Verbs followed by a to -infinitive

Indirect speech: present simple reporting verb

We can use the reporting verb in the present simple in indirect speech if the original words are still true or relevant at the time of reporting, or if the report is of something someone often says or repeats:

Sheila says they’re closing the motorway tomorrow for repairs.

Henry tells me he’s thinking of getting married next year.

Rupert says dogs shouldn’t be allowed on the beach. (Rupert probably often repeats this statement.)

Newspaper headlines

We often use the present simple in newspaper headlines. It makes the reported speech more dramatic:

JUDGE TELLS REPORTER TO LEAVE COURTROOM

PRIME MINISTER SAYS FAMILIES ARE TOP PRIORITY IN TAX REFORM

Present simple ( I work )

Reported speech

Reported speech: direct speech

Indirect speech: past continuous reporting verb

In indirect speech, we can use the past continuous form of the reporting verb (usually say or tell ). This happens mostly in conversation, when the speaker wants to focus on the content of the report, usually because it is interesting news or important information, or because it is a new topic in the conversation:

Rory was telling me the big cinema in James Street is going to close down. Is that true?

Alex was saying that book sales have gone up a lot this year thanks to the Internet.

‘Backshift’ refers to the changes we make to the original verbs in indirect speech because time has passed between the moment of speaking and the time of the report.

In these examples, the present ( am ) has become the past ( was ), the future ( will ) has become the future-in-the-past ( would ) and the past ( happened ) has become the past perfect ( had happened ). The tenses have ‘shifted’ or ‘moved back’ in time.

The past perfect does not shift back; it stays the same:

Modal verbs

Some, but not all, modal verbs ‘shift back’ in time and change in indirect speech.

We can use a perfect form with have + - ed form after modal verbs, especially where the report looks back to a hypothetical event in the past:

He said the noise might have been the postman delivering letters. (original statement: ‘The noise might be the postman delivering letters.’ )

He said he would have helped us if we’d needed a volunteer. (original statement: ‘I’ll help you if you need a volunteer’ or ‘I’d help you if you needed a volunteer.’ )

Used to and ought to do not change in indirect speech:

She said she used to live in Oxford. (original statement: ‘I used to live in Oxford.’ )

The guard warned us that we ought to leave immediately. (original statement: ‘You ought to leave immediately.’ )

No backshift

We don’t need to change the tense in indirect speech if what a person said is still true or relevant or has not happened yet. This often happens when someone talks about the future, or when someone uses the present simple, present continuous or present perfect in their original words:

He told me his brother works for an Italian company. (It is still true that his brother works for an Italian company.)

She said she ’s getting married next year. (For the speakers, the time at the moment of speaking is ‘this year’.)

He said he ’s finished painting the door. (He probably said it just a short time ago.)

She promised she ’ll help us. (The promise applies to the future.)

Indirect speech: changes to pronouns

Changes to personal pronouns in indirect reports depend on whether the person reporting the speech and the person(s) who said the original words are the same or different.

Indirect speech: changes to adverbs and demonstratives

We often change demonstratives ( this, that ) and adverbs of time and place ( now, here, today , etc.) because indirect speech happens at a later time than the original speech, and perhaps in a different place.

Typical changes to demonstratives, adverbs and adverbial expressions

Indirect speech: typical errors.

The word order in indirect reports of wh- questions is the same as statement word order (subject + verb), not question word order:

She always asks me where [S] [V] I am going .

Not: She always asks me where am I going .

We don’t use a question mark when reporting wh- questions:

I asked him what he was doing.

Not: I asked him what he was doing?

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Direct and Indirect of Modal Auxiliaries

We talked about direct and indirect of present tense, past tense and future tenses. In the lesson below I cover direct and indirect of modal auxiliaries . You will learn how to convey a message when you have modal auxiliary verbs in your indirect speech sentences. Direct and indirect structure of sentences for most used and common modal verbs. For direct and indirect speech complete rules click: Direct and indirect speech complete rules

Can:  Can changes to could.

• Direct speech: He said, “I can speak five languages.”
• Indirect speech: He told me that he could speak five languages.

May:  May changes to might.

• Direct speech: She said, “I may buy a new TV today.”
• Indirect speech: She told me that she might buy a new TV that day.

Will:  Will changes to would.

• Direct speech: They said, “We will meet you tomorrow.”
• Indirect speech: They told me that they would meet me the next day.

Shall:  Shall changes to should.

• Direct speech: He said, “I shall do my homework.”
• Indirect speech: He said that he should do his homework.

Have to and Has to:   Have to and Has to Change to had to.

• Direct speech: She said, “My brother has to hit the books.”
• Indirect speech: She told me that her brother had to hit the books.
• Direct speech: He said, “I have to keep up with my classmates.”
• Indirect speech: He said to me that he had to keep up with his classmates.

Must: Must changes to had to.

• Direct speech: My teacher said to me, “You must be on time to class.
• Indirect speech: My teacher told me that I had to be on time to class.

Could:  Could remains could.

• Direct speech: He said, “I couldn`t speak English a few years ago.”
• Indirect speech: He told me that he couldn`t speak English a few years back.

Might:  Might remains might.

• Direct speech: They said to him, “We might fire your brother.”
• Indirect speech: They told him that they might fire his brother.”

Would:  Would Remains would.

• Direct speech: He said, “You would not keep up with them.”
• Indirect speech: He told me that I would not keep up with them.

Should:  Should remains should.

• Direct speech: He said, “I should study hard.”
• Indirect speech: He said to me that he should study hard.

Ought to:  Ought to remains ought to.

• Direct speech: She said to me, “You ought to close the gate.”
• Indirect speech: She reminded me that I ought to close the gate.

Check out Direct and Indirect Speech Exercises With Answers

If you would like to know more about direct or quoted speech, or indirect or reported speech, check out more in the book below.

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Modals in Indirect Speech

Modal verbs change when they are used in indirect speech. In this lesson, we will learn about their structure and uses.

Modals can be used in indirect speech to help us quote a conversation or dialogue for other people.

Using Modal Verbs in Indirect Speech

Modal verbs use backshift when they are used in indirect speech. Backshift refers to the changing of a present tense in direct speech to a past tense in reported speech (or a past tense to a past perfect tense). Here is the backshift of modals on the table:

Will is a modal verb that is used to refer to future action. Here are the changes when it is used in an indirect speech:

direct speech: He said: "I will take a bus to your house."

indirect speech: He said, he would take a bus to my house.

• Using Shall

Usually, we use the modal verb shall to talk about making offers or suggestions. When the direct sentence is used to refer to a future event , we should use would in the indirect speech , but when shall is used to make offers or suggestions we use should instead of shall in the indirect speech .

direct speech: He said, " shall I pick you up?" → making offers

indirect speech: He asked if he should pick me up.

direct speech: Marco said: "I shall go home tomorrow." → talking about the future

indirect speech: Marco said he would go home the following day.

backshift: can → could

When we use 'can' in direct speech to talk about abilities and possibilities we use could in indirect speech . Here are the examples:

direct speech: They said, "We can bring the wine."

indirect speech: They said they could bring the wine.

We usually use the modal verb may to talk about possibilities . We can also use may to ask for or give permission . when we use may to talk about possibilities in direct speech , we use might as an alternative in indirect speech . If we use may to ask for permission or give permission then we should use could in indirect speech .

direct speech: Mania said, "I may go to the party now." → talking about possibility

indirect speech: Mania said she might go to the party then.

direct speech: You asked, may I use the bathroom?" → asking for permission

indirect speech: You asked if you could use the bathroom.

The modal verb must is used particularly to imply obligation . When we want to show obligation in the indirect speech we can use had to or even must . Here are the examples:

direct speech: He said, "you must take responsibility of your own life."

indirect speech: He said I must / had to take responsibility of my own life.

The only modal verbs that change when they are used in indirect speech are: will, shall, can, may, must . Check the backshifts on the table:

You might also like

Making requests, talking about assumptions, modal expressions.

Reported Speech Exercises

Perfect english grammar.

Here's a list of all the reported speech exercises on this site:

( Click here to read the explanations about reported speech )

Reported Statements:

• Present Simple Reported Statement Exercise (quite easy) (in PDF here)
• Present Continuous Reported Statement Exercise (quite easy) (in PDF here)
• Past Simple Reported Statement Exercise (quite easy) (in PDF here)
• Present Perfect Reported Statement Exercise (quite easy) (in PDF here)
• Future Simple Reported Statement Exercise (quite easy) (in PDF here)
• Mixed Tense Reported Statement Exercise (intermediate) (in PDF here)
• 'Say' and 'Tell' (quite easy) (in PDF here)

Reported Questions:

• Present Simple Reported Yes/No Question Exercise (intermediate) (in PDF here)
• Present Simple Reported Wh Question Exercise (intermediate) (in PDF here)
• Mixed Tense Reported Question Exercise (intermediate) (in PDF here)

Reported Orders and Requests:

• Reported Requests and Orders Exercise (intermediate) (in PDF here)
• Reported Speech Mixed Exercise 1 (difficult) (in PDF here)
• Reported Speech Mixed Exercise 2 (difficult) (in PDF here)

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Reported speech modal verbs

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Reported speech with modals

Estilo indirecto con verbos modales.

Los verbos modales también sufren los siguientes cambios al pasar las oraciones del estilo directo al indirecto:

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First conditional (Type 1)

Second conditional (type 2), third conditional (type 3), zero conditional (type 0), impersonal passive voice, passive voice with two objects, question tags, reported speech and direct speech, passive voice, relative clauses, ejercicios interactivos, exercises: question tags, exercises: third conditional (type 3) i, exercises: third conditional (type 3) ii, exercises: indirect speech with different verb tense i, exercises: indirect speech with different verb tense ii, exercises: indirect speech with different verb tense iii, exercises: reported speech v, ejercicios: passive voice present tenses ii, ejercicios: passive voice present tenses iii, exercises: passive voice in past simple, continuous and perfect i, exercises: passive voice in past simple, continuous and perfect ii, exercises: future and conditional i, exercises: future and conditional ii, exercises: passive + modal verbs, exercises: impersonal passive and reflexive passive sentences i, exercises: active and passive voice i, exercises: active and passive voice, exercises: relative pronouns ii, exercises: zero conditional (type 0) i, exercises: first condicional (type 1) i, exercises: second conditional (type 2) i, exercises of reported speech vi, relative pronouns interactive exercises i, exercises of zero conditional (type 0) ii, impersonal passive and reflexive passive interactive exercises, exercises of passive voice present tenses i, exercises of reported speech with modals iv, exercises of second conditional (type 2) ii, exercises first conditional (type 1) ii, cancel reply.

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1.YO ESCRIBI MUCHAS CARTAS 2.EL BANCO ME PRESTO EL DINERO 3.YO HICE MI TAREA AYER 4.ELLOS TRAJERON LOS LIBROS 5.UN CARPINTERO HIZO ESTA SILLA 6.YO PAGUE LA CUENTA 7.MI MADRE MEDIO UN REGALO HERMOSO 8.ELLA PASO EL LAPIZ SOBRE LA MESA 9.ELLA DIJO MUCHAS COSA 10.PEDRO COMPRO 10 MANZANAS.

NECESITO ESTAS ORACIONES EN VOZ PASIVA POR FAVOR.

Hola, alguien por favor me podría ayudar con estas oraciones,

Convert these sentences from DIRECT to INDIRECT SPEECH For example: Carlos: “My dog eats Purina” He said that his dog ate Purina. 1. “I live in New York” She said ________________________________________________________ 2. “He works in a bank” She told me _____________________________________________________ 3. “Julie doesn’t like going out much” She said ________________________________________________________ 4. “I don’t have a computer” She said ________________________________________________________ 5. “They never arrive on time” She said ________________________________________________________ 6. “She didn’t buy the dress.” He told me _____________________________________________________ 7. “I traveled through India and Pakistan.” She told me _____________________________________________________ 8. “He met his girlfriend in a café.” She said ________________________________________________________ 9. “David didn’t arrive until 10 o’clock.” She said ________________________________________________________ 10. “We went to the park to have a picnic.” She told me _____________________________________________________

Peter/eat/too much/pizza/he/get/sick

Very good thats ok

ayudenme por favor

2. COMPLETE THE FIRST CONDITIONAL SENTENCES. If my father gets home early, ________________ _____________________________, I can go out. If we are in trouble, ___________________________. _________________________, she will get sick. If Karen improves her English, __________________________.

I Saw a woman. Her brother works with me i Saw the woman

Me ayudan por favor

*ENGLISH EXAM*

*Change these sentences into passive voice.*

1) Jenny and Juliet play tennis.

2) Helen and Timmy drank orange juice.

3) Rómulo Gallegos wrote “Doña Bárbara”.

4) That student doesn’t speak Italian.

5) Peter doesn’t build a house.

6) Rómulo Gallegos didn’t write “Hamlet”.

7) The professor explained the exercise to the students.

8) Mr. Jone animals.

It Costs To Exist: Acceptability Judgments of the Temporal Concord of the Auxiliary Verbs You and Hui in Taiwan Mandarin

• Original Research
• Published: 07 May 2024
• Volume 53 , article number  44 , ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• Aymeric Collart   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8902-0758 1  

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The mechanisms underlying the processing of the temporal reference of a sentence are still unexplored. Most of the previous psycholinguistic studies used the temporal concord violation between deictic time adverbs and tense marking on the verb to investigate this issue. They found that processing past tense marking is more difficult than non-past tense, indicated by lower accuracy rates and/or longer reaction time. However, it is not clear whether this complexity is due to tense marking or the temporal reference it denotes. This paper examines this issue with a judgment acceptability experiment in Taiwan Mandarin, which is analyzed as a tenseless language. The two modal auxiliary verbs you and hui were placed after deictic past time adverbs (grammatical with you but not with hui ) and deictic future time adverbs (grammatical with hui but not with you ). The temporal concord violation of the auxiliary verb you led to higher acceptability rates but longer reaction time than hui , reflecting higher processing difficulties. This paper argues that these complexities are due to the existential-assertive meaning of you , which interplays with the meaning of the event described by the verb rendering the situation more or less likely to occur in the future. The computation of the temporal concord of hui , displaying a future sense meaning, is more straightforward and therefore easier to process. This suggests that the mechanisms responsible for temporal reference processing are of different nature depending on the semantics of the temporal marker in the sentence.

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Past time reference in a language with optional tense

Assessing alternatives: the case of the presumptive future in Italian

Sequence of tense and cessation implicatures: evidence from Polish

Data, material and code availability.

The experimental materials, anonymized dataset of the results and R script are available in the open repository at the following address: https://osf.io/rzgc2/ .

The term ‘temporal concord’ is adopted in the present study instead of ‘tense agreement’ or ‘temporal agreement’ because the grammatical and ungrammatical temporal concord configurations in (1) and (2) can also be found in languages without overt tense marking, such as Mandarin Chinese (Collart & Chan, 2021 ). Therefore, this term allows us for direct comparisons with typologically-different languages regarding the grammatical expression of the temporal reference of a sentence.

We use the linguistic convention to indicate ungrammatical sentences with an asterisk. The following linguistic glosses are also used in the present study: cl – classifier, neg – negation, sfp – sentence-final particle.

The differences in the experimental designs of these studies mostly consist of which condition is taken as the baseline, i.e., whether the baseline condition has the same verb form (Collart & Zeitoun, 2023 ) or not (Faroqi-Shah & Dickey, 2009 ; Dragoy et al., 2012 ; Biondo et al., 2022 ). These are further discussed in the last section of the article.

The origin of the PADILIH comes from agrammatic aphasia patient studies pointing out that grammatical marking referring to past time reference was more impaired at the production and comprehension levels than non-past time reference (Bastiaanse et al., 2011 ), and therefore this hypothesis focuses on time reference expressed by grammatical markers (verbal morphemes, auxiliary verbs, etc.).

See Lin ( 2003 , 2006 ) for the analysis of the Mandarin aspect morphemes - le and - guo including relative tense meaning.

See Wu ( 2020 :57–58) for arguments to keep the analysis of hui as prominently a modal rather than tense auxiliary verbs based on its behavior in subordinate clause and interaction with negation and aspect markers.

This implies that sentences involving a deictic past time adverb and hui could also be interpreted as ‘having the capacity of doing something in the past’, as in Zhangsan zuotian hui chang na-shou ge, jintian que bu hui le Zhangsan yesterday HUI sing this- cl song, today but neg HUI sfp ‘Zhangsan could/had the capacity to sing this song yesterday, but he cannot anymore today’. Such interpretations are more marked and require additional context. We go back to this point inthe Methodology section.

The threshold of 1500 milliseconds was taken after the visual inspection of the mean reaction time by participant across the experimental conditions showing that there were clear outliers, whose mean reaction time was way below the one of other participants (around 3000 milliseconds).

We found individual differences concerning the ratings of the Future-You condition, as a subgroup of 27 participants had the tendency not to completely reject these sentences. However, this group did not differ from the majority in terms of age, gender, and proportion of speakers of Taiwanese Southern Min and/or English. We also conducted the statistical analyses on the majority group only, but the results were not different from the ones reported below. Since there are no warrant conclusions so far explaining such individual differences, we do not focus on this issue in the following sections.

This corresponded to eleven sentences in the Future-You condition only. These sentences are further discussed in the subsequent sections and listed in Appendix A .

One of the deviant sentences is not considered here because after further inspection, we realized that it was ambiguous between analyzing you as a lexical verb or an auxiliary verb.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. I would like to thank the audience of the 36th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing as well as Dr. Shiaohui Chan and Dr. Elizabeth Zeitoun for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

This work was not supported by any grant or funds.

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The list of the eleven ‘deviant’ sentence are given below in (13a–k) along with their mean ratings and standard deviation.

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Collart, A. It Costs To Exist: Acceptability Judgments of the Temporal Concord of the Auxiliary Verbs You and Hui in Taiwan Mandarin. J Psycholinguist Res 53 , 44 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-024-10086-5

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Accepted : 26 April 2024

Published : 07 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-024-10086-5

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