Hi everybody, I'm Nick Shepherd,
welcome to my channel. This is my second video on reported speech.
Today I'll be looking at reporting statements made in present tense, like this,
and I'll start with a quick reminder of what we said in the first video.
Hope you enjoy it!
OK, here's a quick summary of what we said last time. It was about commands, requests and invitations,
and we started to look at a conversation between Gillian and her boss, Kevin. it started with
a request: We also had a command:
And an invitation:
Each time we have the same three things: we have the reporting verb, asked or told or invited, then the person we're asking, me,
us or Niles, and then the to-infinitive of the verb, to come in, to turn off and to go.
And that's how we report commands requests and invitations.
Now let's move on to statements, things people say. In the last video there was this
little fragment of conversation, which Gillian reported like this:
I'll erase the question; we'll come back to questions later.
Let's look at the first one: and she reports it as:
So at 9 o'clock this morning., it was "Yes, I am", but at 2 o'clock in the afternoon,
it's all in the past, so 'said' is past, and so is am, which is now 'was'.
Here's another little scene. This is our local internet café. And here's
a fragment of a conversation between Antony and Francois:
That evening, Francois met a friend for coffee, and this is what he said:
OK, let's look at the grammar of this. We've got can't, which goes to couldn't,
which is present tense to past tense, don't know goes to didn't know, again present
tense to past tense, and then it is written goes to it was written, present tense to past
tense. And that's the main way of reporting something
that somebody says in the present tense. Now I have something for you to do. Here's
Erica, she's on the phone to a friend, arranging to meet. Here are five things she says:
and the last one is a request: Now, what did she say?
I'll do the first one Now take a look at the next five. Here's
a little Mozart to help you. You can stop the video if you like, and think about it,
and then I'll write in the answers.
OK, are you ready? Here we go. .
Next week we'll be looking at how to report
statements in the past, and after that we'll look at questions. There's a link coming
up for you to subscribe if you want to. OK bye for now, and thanks for watching.