Reported speech (statements)

Reported (indirect) speech is how we tell someone what another person said without using their exact words or quotation marks. To report a statement we usually use a reporting verb such as 'say' or 'tell' followed by 'that' (which can be left out), and then we make some changes. The most important change is that the verb tense often moves one step back into the past: present simple becomes past simple (am/is → was, are → were, like → liked), present continuous becomes past continuous, and 'will' becomes 'would' and 'can' becomes 'could'. We also change the pronouns to match the new speaker (I → he/she, my → his/her) and shift time and place words (now → then, today → that day, here → there). Note that 'say' has no person object, while 'tell' must have one (he said that…, he told me that…). For example: the direct statement "I am tired and I will rest now," she said becomes the reported sentence 'She said that she was tired and she would rest then.'