"I am tired," she said — that is her EXACT words in quotation marks. But if you tell someone else later, you say: She said that she was tired. That change is called reported speech, and it follows three clear rules.
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When you report what someone said, the tense usually moves ONE STEP into the past.
| Direct speech | Reported speech |
|---|---|
| am / is / are | was / were |
| will | would |
| can | could |
| simple past (went) | past perfect (had gone) |
Riya said, "I am tired." → Riya said that she was tired.
"I" changes to match who is speaking. And words that point to time or place also shift, because you may be reporting it later or from somewhere else.
| Direct | Reported |
|---|---|
| now | then |
| today | that day |
| tomorrow | the next day |
| yesterday | the day before |
| here | there |
| this | that |
Change the tense, change the pronoun, change any time words — all in the same sentence.
12 IEO-style questions on reported speech. 🍀
