How to Use Reported Speech (Animated)

Welcome to understanding reported speech! Let's explore how we retell what others have said.Reported speech is how we tell others about conversations without using the exact original words.Let's start with direct speech. Here's Sarah saying something to John.When we report this speech to someone else, we make several changes.Notice the key changes: We remove the quotation marks, change I to she, and am becomes was.Let's look at another example. When Sarah says 'We are going to the park'...The pronouns and verbs change again: We becomes they, and are becomes were.In our final example, when Sarah says 'My book is here'...We change my to her, is becomes was, and here becomes there.Now that we understand the basic changes in reported speech, let's move on to learn more about tense changes.When we change direct speech to reported speech, we need to change the verb tenses.Time expressions also change in reported speech.When reporting questions, we need to pay attention to word order and structure.For yes/no questions, we use 'if' or 'whether' to introduce the reported question.With Wh-questions, we keep the question word but change the word order to that of a normal sentence.When reporting commands, we use the infinitive with 'to'.Different reporting verbs are used depending on the type of speech being reported.Keep these key rules in mind when reporting questions and commands.