PRONOUNS, ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS IN REPORTED SPEECH

1) PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES

Pronouns (I, me) and possessive adjectives (my, your) often change in reported speech.

Example:

- Sue said, ‘I’m on holiday with my friend’. (direct speech)

- Sue said (that) she was on holiday with her friend. (reported speech)

NOTE: When we talk about Sue, we say she, not I, and when we talk about Sue’s friend, we say her friend, not my friend.

2) ADVERBS

People use ADVERBS like here, now today to talk about the place where they are speaking and the time they are speaking. If we report these words in a different place or at a different time, they often change.

Speaker’s words

Reported speech

here

this

now

today

tonight

tomorrow

yesterday

next Monday

last Monday

next week

last week

there

that

then

that day

that night

the next day/the following day

the day before/the previous day

the following Monday

the previous Monday

the following week

the previous week

Example:

- I’m here on holiday. (speaker’s word)

- She said she was there on holiday. (reported speech)

- I’ll see you tomorrow. (speaker’s word)

- He said he would see me the next day. (reported speech)

NOTE: The way these ADVERBS change depends on the situation.

Example: If someone was speaking yesterday and he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ We could now say he said (that) he would see me today.