1.1.2 Reporting speech
When reporting what people have said you need to pay attention to:
reporting verb, e.g. say, tell, suggest;
verb tense, e.g. says, said, tells, told, suggest, suggested;
pronouns, e.g. I, she, he, it, they;
words of time and place, e.g. today, tomorrow, here, there.
Notice the changes in the example below.
‘I think Burmont are moving here next month’, said Jane.
Jane said she thought Burmont were moving there the following month.
Jane told me she thought Burmont were moving there the following month.
Notice the difference between tell and say when reporting statements. You tell someone something but you simply say something.
Activity 3
Look at the following extracts from David Bailey's interview and report them in the same way as the examples above.
‘Companies who want to move can get help from the Commission for New Towns.’
He told me ......
‘We helped them to sell their houses and buy new ones.’
He said ......
‘The majority of staff moved and are very happy.’
He told ......
‘We made better decisions because of what our people told us.’
He said ......
Answer
He told me (that) companies who wanted to move could get help from the Commission for New Towns.
He said (that) they had helped them to sell their houses and buy new ones.
He told me (that) the majority of staff moved and were very happy.
He said (that) they had made better decisions because of what their people had told them.