Indirect speech in English
About course
Reported Speech (Indirect Speech) is when you tell someone what another person said. "She said she didn't like my joke". "He asked if I had lost my sense of humor".
We have to change tenses and some other words in such sentences. It seems rather difficult at first sight. But after this short online course it will all make sense to you. We do not offer to learn numerous rules by heart - we suggest relying on logic and common sense. Only one rule called "step back" will help you deal with all the cases of Reported Speech.
Our fabulous Joker comics will make this grammar lesson very simple for you to understand and remember. Hit the "Buy" button and take a course on Reported Speech now. English online has never been so lit!
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Level:
Intermediate
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35 minutes
- 7 lesson
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12
tasks
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Teacher's language:
Ukrainian
Course program
7 LESSONS
LESSON 1
Tightrope walking
Let`s take a look at the main rules for the indirect speech
LESSON 2
What about modal verbs?
Learn how to change modal verbs in indirect speech
LESSON 3
Time references
A list of time-markers, that are also changed in a Reported Speech. Practice these words
LESSON 4
Say and tell – who is better?
We will analyze the rules of the “say” and “tell” usage
LESSON 5
Why so serious?
How to form a question in indirect speech? Types of questions, the sequence of the words in the sentence.
LESSON 6
Is the joke still relevant?
We will discuss some nuances and exceptions from the rules about Reported Speech
LESSON 7
Revision
It`s high time to revise everything!
Who is this course for
For those, who like comics and a visual approach to grammar understanding.
For those, who confuse grammar rules and exceptions in the Reported Speech.
For teachers, who want to explain a difficult topic in an easy way.
This course is appropriate for those, who want to understand the logic of grammar rules, instead of cramming them.
What will you get after the course
You will easily understand a difficult topic that is named “Reported Speech”, learn how to change tenses in the Reported speech, and procure how to retell somebody`s words. This course will teach you how to apply only one rule for most cases.
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Level:
Intermediate
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35 minutes
- 7 lesson
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12
tasks
-
Teacher's language:
Ukrainian
We all enjoy gossiping, although we rarely admit it. While being involved in such discussions, it is simply impossible to avoid using reported speech, namely, freely retelling the words of a third person. Therefore, if you are learning English, you need to master this art thoroughly (not gossip, of course, but the art of retelling the words of others).
Several peculiarities of reported speech in English
This type of speech has several peculiarities that are very difficult for beginner students to master:
- Sequence of tenses. When conveying someone's words, we typically report them in a subordinate clause, where we should take a "step back in time”. For instance, if the direct speech was "I am watching TV”, then the indirect speech would be conveyed as "She said she was watching TV”. This means that if a person stated they were doing something in the Present Continuous, when retelling their words, we take a step back and narrate that event in the Past Continuous. However, it is not always that straightforward, as Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous remain unchanged.
- The absence of commas and conjunctions. Americans and English do not like to put commas in complex sentences, and they almost never use conjunctions between the two parts of the sentence, that is, in the example of indirect speech "She said she was watching TV", they simply lose the word "that".
- Changing adverbs of time. Supposing your sister said: "I will visit our grandmother tomorrow”. To convey her words to someone using reported speech, in English you need to replace "tomorrow" with "next day": "She said she would visit our grandmother the next day”.
- Using the conjunction “if” to convey a question. For example, your friend asks whether you want to go to the movies. In an indirect language, you can say the following: "She asked me if I would go to the cinema”.
These are just general peculiarities. In order to understand all grammar rules, it is important to study this topic consistently, because it is much more complicated than it seems at first glance.
Indirect speech: all the rules in one course created by Booyya
Experienced teachers and the Booyya platform team have prepared a comprehensive course for you, which will help you learn how to accurately convey someone else's speech in English in 7 short lessons. You will be able to understand all the rules and nuances, thus receiving numerous examples, and reinforcing your knowledge through exercises. Here are a few significant advantages of this course:
- all the information is gathered in one place and divided into sections so that a large elephant can be eaten in small bites;
- the course content is not comprised of dry theory but includes interesting comics and jokes to make your learning more enjoyable and knowledge easier to retain;
- professional English instructors explained all grammatical peculiarities in simple language, allowing understanding their logic without rote memorization;
- the peculiarities of using reported speech are memorably presented through exercises included in the course;
- there are no troubles understanding the information as the course instructor speaks Ukrainian, and it is designed for students at the Intermediate level.
By gaining access to this course, you will be able to quickly master the complicated as well as tricky topic, learning literally with your phone in hand. Because all materials are hosted on an online platform within an interactive textbook that can be viewed on all existing devices.
- access to all 194 courses on the platform, except for the English PRO series
- 2 - 4 new courses every month
- exclusive access to SUBSCRIPTION ONLY courses
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- unlimited studying for the selected period
- access to self-study English plans
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