Direct and Indirect Speech

Narration (Direct and Indirect)

In our speech, we often speak to the other person of something that was said to us by somebody. In other words, we often report a speech whether ours or someone else's. We do this in two ways.

We either report the speech exactly as we had heard or said it without making any change. This is called Direct Speech.

Example:
The girl said to her mother, "My plate is empty." Or We may change the sentence that we had heard or said without changing its meaning and then report it. This is called Indirect Speech.

Example:The girl said to her mother that her plate was empty.

In the first example, the first part of the sentence which is before the comma is referred to as reporting verb and the part which is within inverted commas is called the reported speech.

Note: While transforming from direct into indirect, we have made several changes in the sentence above:

1. We have removed the comma in the indirect sentence and put that in its place.

2. We have removed the inverted commas of the reported speech.

3. We have changed the my of the reported speech into her.

4. We have not used any capital letter in between the sentence unlike in the direct form where the reported speech always begins with a capital letter.

Now, in order to bring these changes while converting from direct into indirect or vice-versa, there are several important but simple rules that need to be observed. They are :

Changes in Tense and Verb

While changing from direct to indirect we have to make different changes regarding tenses, verbs or helping verb. A short list is given below to have a look on those changes:

Direct Speech Indirect Speech
Present Indefinite Past Indefinite
Present Continuous Past Continuous
Present Perfect Past Perfect
Present Perfect Continuous Past Perfect Continuous
Past Indefinite Past Perfect
Past Continuous Past Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect No change
Past Perfect Continuous No change

Important Rules

a. If the reporting verb, i.e. the main verb in the first part of the sentence before comma is in the present or in the future tense, the tense of the verbs in the reported speech will not change.

Example:

Direct : Mummy says, "I shall write a letter."

Indirect : Mummy says that she will write a letter.

b. If the reporting verb is in the past tense, the tense of the verbs in the reported speech will be changed into their corresponding past tense.

Example:

Direct : The boy said to his friend. "I write everyday." (Present Indefinite)

Indirect : The boy said to his friend that he wrote everyday. (Past Indefinite)

Direct : The boy said to the teacher, "I am going there every day." (Present Continuous)

Indirect : The boy said to the teacher that he was going there every day. (Past Continuous)

c. If the reporting verb is in the past tense, the simple past in the reported speech may become the past perfect in the Indirect.

Example:

Direct : He said, "The horse died in the night." (Simple Past)

Indirect : He said that the horse had died in the night. (Past Perfect)

Direct : He said, "The man came at six." (Simple Past)

Indirect : He said that the man had come at six. (Past Perfect)

d. If the reporting verb is in the past tense, the past continuous in the reported speech changes into the past perfect continuous.

Example:

Direct : He said, "The man was coming." (Past Continuous)

Indirect : He said that the man had been coming. (Past Perfect Continuous)

Direct : He said, "Rain was falling yesterday." (Past Continuous)

Indirect : He said that rain had been falling the previous day. (Past Perfect Continuous)

Change of person

The persons of the pronouns and of the verbs in the reported speech undergo changes when converted into indirect form. Thus:

a. First person pronouns in the direct reporter speech change according to the subject of the reporting verb.

Direct : He says, "I am going to Delhi."

Indirect : He says that he is going to Delhi.

Direct : Mummy says, "I will have to go."

Indirect : Mummy says that she will have to go.

b. Second person's pronoun changes according to the noun or pronoun coming after the reporting verbs. Second person changes to third, if there nothing mentioned of the second person in the reporting verb part.

Direct Indirect
You He
Your His/Her
You (Plural) They
Your (Plural) Their
You (Object) Him/Her
You (Object) Them
Yours (object) Theirs

But if there you (second person) is mentioned in the direct speech, you in the indirect speech remain unchanged.

Direct : Ram said to you, "You are a good boy."

Indirect : Ram said to you that you were a good boy.

Hope this will clear your confusions in Narration.

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Comments ( 3 )

  1. shaista qureshi
    6 years ago
    informative
  2. Examveda
    6 years ago
  3. Muhammad Zeeshan
    3 years ago
    You must also share rules of making interogative sentences