10 Examples of Reported Speech! In linguistics, reported speech is the second-hand account of a statement, question, or other utterance made by someone else. It’s also called indirect speech. Reported speech can be direct or indirect. Direct reported speech repeats, or quotes, the exact words spoken (either spoken or written). Indirect reported speech doesn’t repeat the exact words spoken, but instead paraphrases them. For example:
” Tara said ‘I’m tired,'” is an example of direct reported speech.
“Tara said that she was tired,” is an example of indirect reported speech. In this sentence, the word “said” is in italics to show that it’s part of the quote. The rest of the sentence gives the context of what Tara said. Here are 10 examples of reported speech:
10 Examples of Reported Speech
- “I’m going to the store.” – Jill told me that she was going to the store.
- “I’m hungry.” – Tim said that he was hungry.
- “I need to go to the bathroom.” – Sarah told me that she needed to go to the bathroom.
- “Can you please turn off the light?” – I asked him if he could please turn off the light.
- “I don’t know.” – John told me that he didn’t know.
- “Do you want to go get ice cream?” – She asked me if I wanted to go get ice cream with her.
- “That wasn’t very nice of you.” – He told me that what I did wasn’t very nice of me.
- “I’m sorry.” – She said that she was sorry for what she had done.
- “Thank you.” – I told him thank you for his help.
- “Goodbye.” – They said goodbye and left..
