Grammar Worksheet

Reported Speech: What People Said

B1–B2 tense shift: present → past, will → would

Explanation

Reported speech tells us what someone said without using their exact words.

Verb tenses shift one step back: present simple → past simple, ‘will’ → ‘would’, ‘can’ → ‘could’.

Pronouns also change: ‘I’ → she/he, ‘my’ → her/his, ‘you’ → I/they (depending on context).

Form

Tip: ‘That’ is optional: She said (that) she was tired. — both are correct.

Say vs tell: ‘said’ (no object) / ‘told + person’: She told me she was tired.

Examples

Common Mistakes

She said she will come. → She said she would come. ‘Will’ shifts to ‘would’ in reported speech.
He told that he was tired. → He told me that he was tired. ‘Tell’ must be followed by a person (told me / told us) — not directly by ‘that’.
She said she can drive. → She said she could drive. ‘Can’ shifts to ‘could’ in reported speech.
He said he has already eaten. → He said he had already eaten. Present perfect (‘has finished’) shifts to past perfect (‘had finished’).

Exercises

1 Report the sentence

Write the reported speech form. Begin with ‘She said…’ or ‘He said…’

“I am tired.” → She said she was tired.

2 Correct the mistake

Each sentence has one mistake. Write the correct sentence.

3 Direct to reported

Change the direct speech to reported speech.

“I am studying English.” → She said she was studying English.

4 What did they say?

Think of four things someone said to you recently. Write them as reported speech.

5 Reported to direct

Write what the person actually said. Change back to direct speech.

She said she was tired. → “I am tired.”

Speaking Activity

Play ‘Telephone’. Student A whispers a sentence to Student B, who reports it to Student C in reported speech.

Pay attention to tense shifts and pronoun changes when reporting.