General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 04 Topic 03.doc  LANGUAGE FOCUS 03 Reported questions, reported functions In this activity you will revise how to use reported speech and find out how to use reported questions and functions. Reported speech - revision Reported speech is when we report indirectly what people said. The tense of the verbs in direct speech usually "moves back" one tense in reported speech. Look Direct Speech Reported Speech Present Simple "I understand your question perfectly," the lawyer said. Past Simple The lawyer said he understood the question perfectly. Present Continuous "We are looking for the attacker," the policeman said. Past Continuous The policeman said that they were looking for the attacker. Past Simple "She breached security," David said. Past perfect He said that she had breached security. Present Perfect "Until now, my client has been a model citizen," her lawyer said. Past Perfect Her lawyer said that until now she had been a model citizen. Past Continuous "She was looking suspicious when I came into the room," he said. Past Perfect Continuous He said that she had been looking suspicious when he had come into the room. Future using "will" "I will be happy to help you," she said. Would She said she would be happy to help us. Can "People can't understand why she did it," she said. Could She said people couldn't understand why she did it. Time and place references Sometimes we have to change time and place words to make the reported sentence make sense. How we change them depends on when and where we are as we speak. Here are some changes that we might make when we use reported speech. 130 QUESTLANGUAGE