Past perfect in reported speech

Question

Hi,

I think the rule is to change past tense in a direct speech to its past perfect tense during reported speech. An example:

Direct speech - "I lost my fortune!" lamented the man.

Reported speech - The man lamented that he had lost his fortune.

I am not sure why then in the sentence - "I came in first in all my races!" Joseph boasted. - gave me the following answer - Joseph boasted that he had come in first in all his races.

Is the above example correct? Why do we use 'had come'? Why not 'had came'?

Thank you!

Sincerely,

ryan lee

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Ryan:
The example is correct. You have to understand the parts of verbs. 'Come" is an irregular "strong" verb. The perfect tenses are constructed with the past participle verb part. "Come" is the past participle of the verb "come". "Came" is the simple past.

Yoong Liat · Answer

1. Direct speech - "I lost my fortune!" lamented the man.
Reported speech - The man lamented that he had lost his fortune.

The rule is to change the simple past tense to the past perfect tense. Hence, 'lost' is changed to 'had lost'.

2. I am not sure why then in the sentence - "I came in first in all my races!" Joseph boasted. - gave me the following answer - Joseph boasted that he had come in first in all his races.
Is the above example correct? Why do we use 'had come'? Why not 'had came'?

'came' becomes 'had come' because the past participle of 'come' is 'come' (come came come).
Hence, it should be' had come' ('come' is the past participle). To form the past perfect tense, you need to use the past participle).

I hope this helps.

Yoong Liat · Answer

Hi Moderator

Please delete duplicate post 696428 for me as it seems that I am unable to do so.

Thanks.

Koh

Tanit · Answer

Hi,
Your duplicate post has been removed. Thanks!

Yoong Liat · Answer

Thanks, Tanit, for your quick action.

Past perfect in reported speech

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