Question

He said,"The birds are singing."

Indirect speech​

Answer 1

The sentence can be changed into indirect speech as follows:

He said that the birds were singing.

What are direct and indirect sentences?

• In English linguistics, a direct voice sentence can be described as a sentence in which the exact words of the speaker are used to convey the message of the speaker. Direct speech is written in inverted commas.

• On the other hand, in indirect speech, the exact words of the speaker are not used to convey the message. Indirect speech is not written in inverted commas.
• As the sentence in the question is in the present continuous tense, when changing it into indirect, the tense will be past continuous.