Tenses to use for reporting someone else's words

It's better if you show us a little of what you can do. Then we can see more clearly how to help you.

Clive

To report what someone said, you start with '... said'.
To report what someone asked, you start with '... asked'.
And so on.

Then, in what follows, you change all present point-of-view tenses to the corresponding past point-of-view tenses.

This is a very large topic, so it cannot be covered in a forum post.

You can find what you want among the articles listed in the G

teal lime

Which tense or tenses do you normally use to report someone else's words?

Would you please give me some examples?

Thank you.

This is called "reported speech". Almost any tense can be used but there is a relationship between the tense in the main clause and the tense in the dependent clause (the speech.) It is rather complicated,