Page 83 - Grammar Class 05

Direct Speech

There is a comma ( ) after the speaker’s actual words.,

There is a full stop ( ) after the words of the speaker..

A question mark ( ) or an ? exclamation mark ( ) can be used instead of a full stop to !
indicate a question or surprise.

Quotation marks “ ” ( ) open before the actual words of the speaker and close after a
comma or any other punctuation at the end of the dialogue.

Read the following example:

Mohit said, “I am ill.”

Indirect speech is also called reported speech. For indirect speech, we do not need

quotation marks to report what somebody said. When a past tense ‘saying’ verb is
used in the indirect speech, we need to change the verbs used in the spoken words
to the past tense, too.

G Present Past

G Present Continuous Past Continuous
You also need to change some
G Can Could personal pronouns and other
words, e.g., here to there ,
G Shall / Will Could today to that day tomorrow, to
the next day yesterday ,
G May Might to the day before .

G Have Had been

Read some examples of direct and indirect speech:

Direct Speech : I said, “I would like to see it.”

Indirect Speech : I said that I would like to see it.

Direct Speech : “I never eat meat”, he said.

Indirect Speech : He said that he never ate meat.

Direct Speech : “I’m waiting for Neeta”, he said.

Indirect Speech : He said that he was waiting for Neeta.

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