But my boss said that it was okay and that he would get someone else to take the minutes. There is an important meeting this afternoon. “I didn’t feel well this morning, so I called my boss to let him know.

I saw her yesterday, and she told me that she was going to France next month,” Anne replied. “Have you seen Jillian lately?” Mary asked. Here are some reporting dialogue examples. When you incorporate reported speech within a character’s dialogue, you need to keep the tense shift. Using reported speech dialogue in writing

In all forms, the relative pronoun, that, is optional. When active speech is in the present perfect, it shifts back to the past perfect.īut for past simple active speech, it can shift back to past perfect, or stay in the past simple. The general rule is that active speech in present or future tenses shifts back to the past simple. Tom told me that they had wanted to buy a new house but didn’t get the loan. They wanted to buy a new house but didn’t get the loan. He told me that she would pass her exam for sure. It is an action that occurred in the past, so we refer to it as a past event.Ĭompare the difference between these direct and indirect sentences. It is because it is something someone said in the past. No matter what tense the original utterance used, reported speech always uses the past. When you use the past form, you need to pay special attention to the tense shift. You include the attribution and reporting verb without punctuation. But you write reported speech as a standard sentence. You need to format dialogue with punctuation and quotation marks. He always says that he is going to buy a Ferrari one day. She said she was going into town that morning and that she should be back before dinner. We can use both past and present tense in reported speech. It is also used to paraphrase long speeches or extended discourse. It is often used to convey small talk or gossip about what other people said. In reported speech or indirect speech, we may not necessarily use the exact words of the speaker. “I’m going to buy a Ferrari one day,” he always says.īut you wouldn’t use the present dialogue form in most fiction writing. “When I get older, I think I’ll travel the world,” she says. It is when you want to say that someone says something often or all the time. You can also use the present simple tense for reporting verbs in some circumstances. “I have friends over for dinner all the time,” he said. “I’ve had friends over for dinner quite often,” he said. “I’m having friends over for dinner tomorrow night,” he said.

Reported speech dialogue exercises pdf