Reported speech is simply when we tell somebody what someone else said. You can do this in your writing, or in speech. Reported speech is very different from direct speech, which is when you show what somebody said in the exact way that they said it. In reported speech though, you do not need to quote somebody directly.

Instead, we use a reporting verb, such as say or ask. These reporting verbs are used to report the speech to someone else. There are many different reporting verbs that can be used, and well try to use different ones throughout this article to show you some examples, but you can always do some research too if you want to learn more examples for yourself.

In short, reported speech is the linguistic technique that we use to tell somebody what someone elses direct speech was. In reported speech though, you may need to make certain changes to the grammar to make the sentence make sense. So, well look at some grammar change examples below and highlight what needs to be changed.

Reported Speech Examples

When we use reported speech, we are usually talking about the past (because obviously, the person who spoke originally spoke in the past). The verbs therefore usually have to be in the past too.

For example:

• Direct speech: Ive lost my umbrella.
• Reported speech: He said (that) he had lost his umbrella.