3. Reporting

When we report speech in a different context from the one in which it was originally produced, we sometimes need to make changes to the original words. Of course, differences between the original speech context and the one in which it is reported will influence whether changes are needed and what they should be. Here are some possible changes:

"I want to go there with you." – He says that he wants to go there with us.

 "I haven't seen her today." – He says that he hasn't seen her today.

 "Does she live in this house?" – He asks whether she lives in this house.

The tense we choose for a report is one that is appropriate at the time that we are reporting what was said or thought. This means that we sometimes use a different tense in the report from the one that was used in the original statement and change pronouns, references to time and place, and words such as this, that, and these

He said, "I went to the park yesterday."

She told me that she liked this town.

She said to Anna that she had already written three letters.

He told me about his bussines

Say and tell are the verbs most commonly used to report statements. We use an object after tell (...me...,), but not after say. Notice, however, that we can use to + object after say (.:.to John...,), but not after tell, and that we can report what topic was talked about using tell + object + about.

Generally speaking, the tenses in object clauses change in the following way: the Simple Present is changed to the Simple Past; the Present Continuous is changed to the Past Continuous; the Present Perfect is changed to the Past Perfect; the Present Perfect Continuous is changed to the Past Perfect Continuous; the Simple Past is changed to the Past Perfect; the Past Continuous is changed to the Past Perfect Continuous; the Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous remain unchanged; the Future tenses are changed to the Future in the Past