๐ฌ๐ง Learn English ยท B1 Grammar
๐ฃ๏ธ Reporting What People Said
Learn how to tell someone else what another person said. This is very useful for sharing news and stories.
What is Reported Speech?
Sometimes we want to tell a friend what another person said. We call this reported speech. We often use the word 'that' after the verb 'said'. For example, if Anna says 'I am tired', you can tell Mark later: 'Anna said that she is tired.' Notice how the pronouns change from 'I' to 'she' to match the person.
Changing Pronouns
When you report someone's words, you usually need to change the pronouns. If a man says 'I have a car', you say 'He said that he has a car'. If a woman says 'My dog is big', you say 'She said that her dog is big'. Always think about who is speaking and who you are talking to.
Leaving out 'That'
In spoken English, we often drop the word 'that'. It is completely correct to say 'He said he was tired' without the 'that'. Both ways have the exact same meaning, but dropping 'that' makes your English sound a little more natural and fast when you are chatting with friends.
