Question

He said to me, "I have often told you not to idle away your time."
change this into indirect speech.

Answer 1

Answer:

He told me that he had often told me not to idle away my time.

Explanation:

We know that, the sentence is a statement.

So, According to the rule :

• Remove commas and quotations.
• said to ⟶ told
• I (refers to the boy) ⟶ He
• have (present perfect) ⟶ had (past perfect)
• your ⟶ my

More about this topic :

While changing a sentence from Direct to Indirect, it undergoes 5 changes.

1) Reporting verb :

For statement,

• said to ⟶ told
• says, said ⟶ will not change
• say to ⟶ tell, says to ⟶ tells to

For Introgative,

• said to ⟶ asked/demanded/questioned
• connecting word ⟶ If/Whether for yes/no questions

For Imperative,

• said to ⟶ commanded/ordered/advised/requested/warned
• connecting word ⟶ 'to' for positive sentence, 'not to' for negative sentence.

For exclamatory,

• said to ⟶ exclamed/exclamed with joy or sorrow/wished
• connecting word ⟶ that

2)Add conjunction, remove commas and quotations :

• Remove quotations, commas
• Add full stops, question marks and exclamatory marks if needed.

3) Pronoun change :

• I ⟶ He/She
• We ⟶ They
• You ⟶ He/She/They/I/Him/Her/Them
• Us ⟶ Them
• Me ⟶ Him/Her
• Mine ⟶ Hers/His
• Ours ⟶ Theirs
• My ⟶ Her/His

4) Tense change :

• Present ⟶ Past
• Present continuous ⟶ Past continuous
• Present perfect ⟶ Past perfect
• Past ⟶ Past Perfect
• Past continuous ⟶ Past perfect continuous
• will/shall/can/may ⟶ would/should/could/might

5) Adverbial Change :

• Today ⟶ That day
• Tomorrow ⟶ the next day/the day after
• Yesterday ⟶ the previous day/the day after
• Last week/month/year ⟶ the previous week/month/year
• next week/month/year ⟶ the week/month/year after
• ago ⟶ before
• thus ⟶ so
• this/these ⟶ that/those
• now ⟶ then