Let's Practise
Change the narration of the following sentences from indirect to direct speech.
1. Her mother replied that she would always support her.
2. She said that she had made a grave mistake.
3. You told her that she had been making such mistakes for a long time.
4. I suggested to him that he could stay with us for a month.
5. You told me that you were leaving that day itself.
6. She told me that the clothes were swept off the clothesline.
7. His boss instructed him to finish all his work before he left.
Answers
Answer:What is Direct Speech?
l Consider the following sentence:
Rama said : ' A fine lesson will be taught to the wicked Ravana.'
The given sentence is in direct speech.
Here the exact words of the speaker have been put within quotation marks.
There is a colon after 'said'.
The first word inside the quotation marks starts with a capital letter.
What is an indirect speech then?
• Let's consider the indirect speech of the sentence under consideration ,
Rama said (that) a fine lesson would be taught to the wicked Ravana.
In Indirect speech
• The quotation marks as well as the colon after said are removed.
• The conjunction “that” introduces to us the words (not exact) spoken by the speaker. However the latest trend is to drop 'that'
RULES FOR CHANGING DIRECT INTO INDIRECT SPEECH
n Get one thing straight-you do not have to learn the rules by heart. Simply understand what they ask you to do and apply the same in converting a sentence from direct to indirect
n RULE ONE:-If in direct speech you find say/says or will say then DO NOT CHANGE THE TENSE that you can find within the quotation marks
EXAMPLES-RULE ONE
n I say ' I am elated”
n I say I am elated
n He says,” I was a fool then”
n He says he was a fool then.
n She says,” I will be more experienced then”
n She says she will be more experienced then
n I will say,” He loves cricket”
n I will say he loves cricket
n She will say,” He was in the land of nod then”
n She will say he was in the land of nod then.
n They will say,” We will achieve greatness”
n They will say we will achieve greatness.
RULE TWO
• If in direct speech the words within the quotation marks talk of a universal truth or habitual action then RULE ONE is followed or in other words the tense inside the quotation marks is not changed at all.. For e.g.
• The teacher said,” The sun rises in the east”
The teacher said the sun rises in the east
RULE THREE
* If there is 'said' in the direct speech then the tense of the words inside quotation marks is changed to the past tense.
* I said,” I am suffering from a fit of ennui”
* I said I was suffering from a fit of ennui.