令人頭痛的Reported Speech (轉述句)

同學不管在用msn聊天或是寫作時常常會犯下reported speech的文法錯誤
以下是一些常用到的句型以及文法規則
下次在用到 "聽誰說" 或是 "他/她說"的句子時就不會再用錯囉

word
changes

When reporting someone
else’s speech, the time, the place and the speakers are often different, so
tenses or modals (past/present tenses, will, can etc), words connected with
time and place (today, here etc), and pronouns (I, you, he etc) often change:

DIRECT: "I’ll do my homework, here, at the library, tonight."
(said on Monday 5th)

REPORTED: She said she would do her homework, there, at the
library, last night. (reported on Tuesday 6th)

Verbs used in the original
speech generally become more ‘past’ (i.e. they often go back a tense) but some
of them stay the same:

present simple > past
simple

present progressive > past progressive

past simple > past perfect (or remains as past simple)

present perfect > past perfect

past progressive > past perfect progressive (or remains as past progressive)

past perfect remains as past perfect

can/may/shall/will > could/might/should/would

would, could, should, ought to and might remain the same

must > had to (or remains as must)

If the speech that we
report talks about things that you think are still true then the tense doesn’t
need to change:

DIRECT: "Sally has broken her leg."

REPORTED: He said Sally has broken her leg.

When we report ‘requests’, ‘offers’, ‘advice’, ‘orders’, and ‘suggestions’ we often use a
to-infinitive clause:

DIRECT: "Can you pick me up from the station tonight?"

REPORTED: I asked him to pick me up from the station.

questions in reported speech

The subject comes before
the verb. The tense often changes (see above). Note also that question marks
are not used in reported questions:

DIRECT: "What’s the matter?"

REPORTED: She asked me what the matter was.

If the question is a
‘yes/no’ question, we use if or whether to report the speech. The auxiliary
verb do is not used:

DIRECT: "Do you like Oasis?"

REPORTED: He asked me if I liked Oasis.

say and tell

In reported speech, said followed by that is one of the most common
constructions. We cannot say told
that. If we want to use told, we have to mention the ‘hearer’ by
using an object (him, her, us, Bob etc):

DIRECT: "I love you but I can’t marry you!"

REPORTED: He told me (that) he loved me but couldn’t marry
me.

Note! That is often omitted, especially
in speech.

other reporting verbs

We can use announce, answer, reply, promise, claim, warn etc instead of the more common
say, tell and ask:

DIRECT: "I’ll call you tomorrow."

REPORTED: He promised he would call me today.

 

Source from British Council
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-grammar-definitions-reported-speech.htm#questions