THE SEQUENCE OF TENSES Your enemy. This is super hard. Also known as INDIRECT SPEECH.

CHANGING TO REPORTED SPEECH Reported speech has: NO QUOTES CHANGED TIME CHANGED PRONOUNS CHANGED TIME WORDS He asked, “Can I have a muffin tomorrow?” He asked if he could have a muffin the next day. He told me, “I have three ears.” He told me that he had three ears.

REPORTED SPEECH More examples: Jack: “I like eating.” Jack told me that he liked eating. Jack: “I stole your phone.” Jack told me that he had stolen my phone.

REPORTED SPEECH Do you see that we: Made the pronoun match the speaker? Changed to a more past verb tense? Jack: “I like eating.” Jack told me that he liked eating. Jack: “I stole your phone.” Jack told me that he had stolen my phone.

REPORTED SPEECH We use “ask” for all questions! Are you sick? You asked me if I was sick. How many cats do you have? You asked me how many cats I have.

REPORTED SPEECH You have this page in your ELP reference booklet to help you study the tense changes.

PRACTICE Please look at the handout and/or p.296 of GC. Do Exercise 15.

REPORTED SPEECH We use “say” if we don’t explain who received the information! We use “tell” if we DO explain who received the information. We can also use “said to ___”, but this is less common. He said that he was okay. He told me that he was okay. He said to me that he was okay.

PRACTICE Please do Exercise 16 on p. 298 of GC.