DIRECT AND INDERICT SPEECH

Direct and Indirect Speech

Direct Speech

Saying exactly what someone has said is called direct speech (sometimes called quoted speech)

Here what a person says appears within quotation marks (“…”) and should be word for word.

Indirect Speech

Indirect speech (sometimes called reported speech), doesn't use quotation marks to enclose what person said and it doesn't have to be word for word. When reporting speech the tense usually changes. This because when we use reported speech, we are usually talking about a tie in the past (because obviously the person who spoke originally spoke in the past). The verbs therefore usually have to be in the past too.

For example :

Direct speech	Indirect speech
“I'm going to the cinema”, he said	He said he was going to the cinema