Exercise 2
Read the following conversation and report the dialogue in the reported speech.
Mike: "What are you doing here, Liz? I haven't seen you since June."
Liz: "I've just come back from my holiday in Ireland."
Mike: "Did you enjoy it?"
...
Reported speech exercises with answers and grammar rules.
How to report a dialogue in narration
If we report a conversation in narration, we use a reporting verb ('say' and 'tell' are the most common, but there are a lot of other verbs like 'claim', 'admit', 'explain'...). If the reporting verb is in the past tense (I said that... He told us that...), we have to change the following:
- Tenses (one tense back in time)
"I am hungry," I said. - I said I was hungry.
"Jim has gone away," Betty told me. - Betty told me that Jim had gone away.
- Pronouns
They called us," said Tom. - Tom said they had called them.
"I like this," Sarah told me. - Sarah told me she liked that.
- Time and place
Harry: "She will come tomorrow." - Harry said she would come the next day.
"I'll be here on time," he said. - He said he would be there on time.
- Word order in reported questions
"How old are you?" asked Peter. - Peter wanted to know how old I was.