Question

Change the following exchange into Reported Speech.
NHK Radio : How was the environment like when you were a child?
Wangari : The environment was pristine.

Answer 1

Answer:

NHK radio asked wangari matha that how like was the environment when she was a child.

Wangari matha replied that the environment was pristine.

Answer 2

The given sentences in the direct speech can be changed into indirect speech as shown below:

NHK Radio asked Wangari how the environment was like when she was a child.

Wangari replied that the environment had been pristine.  

Explanation

The first sentence was an interrogative case.  The reporting verb 'said to' is changed into 'asked', enquired' or 'wanted to know'.When we convert an interrogative sentence starting with wh- word, we don’t add any conjunction such as ‘that’, ‘if’ etc. We just use the wh-word and turn the question into statement. The other tense and pronoun changes are applied as per the reported speech rules.

The second sentence was a statement. When we change the narration of a simple statement, we do the following changes in the given sentence:

1. We connect reporting verb clause with quoted speech (direct speech) using 'that'

2. We change the tense of the quoted speech into the past tense.

3. We change the pronouns according to the subject and object.