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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Reported speech
Hi guys,
I'd like to ask a question about reported speech and shifting tenses.
In a book, they say, that if you have past simple in direct speech sentence, you can shift it to past perfect, OR it can stay the same in reported speech - past simple.
But, every exercise on the internet I have encoutered, report it as an error if don't use past perfect.
So what should I use ? Or is there any difference in meaning or something ?
Thanks in advance
I'd like to ask a question about reported speech and shifting tenses.
In a book, they say, that if you have past simple in direct speech sentence, you can shift it to past perfect, OR it can stay the same in reported speech - past simple.
But, every exercise on the internet I have encoutered, report it as an error if don't use past perfect.
So what should I use ? Or is there any difference in meaning or something ?
Thanks in advance
Top answer
So what should I use ? Thanks in advance Purists will always complain about that but in practice, especially in spoken English, the past tenses can be left unchanged as far as they don't create confusion. For example, the sentence Mary said, "John passed his driving test on Friday" could be expressed in reported speech with the simple past unchanged or with the past perfect tense: Mary said John passed/had passed his driving test on Friday.
- So what should I use ?
- Thanks in advance Purists will always complain about that but in practice, especially in spoken English, the past tenses can be left unchanged as far as they don't create confusion.
- For example, the sentence Mary said, "John passed his driving test on Friday" could be expressed in reported speech with the simple past unchanged or with the past perfect tense: Mary said John passed/had passed his driving test on Friday.
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1 Answers
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AnonymousHi guys,I'd like to ask a question about reported speech and shifting tenses.In a book, they say, that if you have past simple in direct speech sentence, you can shift it to past perfect, OR it can stay the same in reported speech - past simple.But, every exercise on the internet I have encoutered, report it as an error if don't use past perfect.So what should I
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