Athabasca University Write Site Direct and Indirect Speech
Athabasca University Write Site Direct and Indirect Speech is a page of the English Grammar Handbook, in its Concise ESL Support section, published by Athabasca University. The page explains how verb tenses change in indirect speech, with charts of direct and indirect forms for statements, questions, imperatives and modal verbs, and shows the cases in which the tenses stay the same.
100% Free (unlimited): The whole page, with all of its charts and examples, is open to every learner on the Athabasca University website, with no account and no payment. You can read it online whenever you need to check a rule.
How It Helps Your Business English
The page sets out how verb tenses move further into the past when a statement is reported. Charts pair each direct form with its indirect form across the present, past and future tenses, a further chart covers the modal verbs, and a closing section names other verbs that introduce reported speech.
Read the short explanation at the top first, then work down the charts and compare the two columns sentence by sentence. The pairs show the pattern more clearly than a rule does. Keep the chart of modal verbs in view when you report a request or an obligation, since those forms shift in their own way. The page stays useful afterwards as a reference before you write anything that reports what another person said.
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