Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles I want to speak really English from your first lesson. Sign up for your free lifetime account at English Class 101 dot com. Hi, everybody. My name is Alicia. In this lesson, we're going to talk about reporting speech in English. I'm going to talk about the verbs we use and a couple of grammar points that you can think about. Don't let's get started. The first type of speech reporting I want to introduce is reporting statements. So statements are just simple things. Simple sentences that people said S O. This can be direct dialogue. Exactly the thing someone said, or it can be a summary of something someone said. So keep in mind, these are not questions. I'm going to talk about questions later. Let's look at the verbs and the other expressions we use to report simple statements. The 1st 1 is the very, very neutral, said I said said is the past tense form of say so We use, say, and past tense said as the most basic way to share something someone else said. So we can use this for direct reports, meaning exactly the thing someone said. We do this, we use quotes to indicate direct speech. Or we can just use it as I have here to introduce a summary of something in this example sentence. I said I had to work, So this is just a simple summary. I said something similar in the past perhaps, but this is maybe not a direct report of my speech we can use said in most cases just to report information. This was said by someone. The speaker is here, the subject. So I in this case I said I had to work. We could change it, too. He said. He had to work is fun. They said they had to work. So this is the most basic Ferb we can use to report speech. Let's move on to a couple other ones. Let's look at this. Told here. I'm using the verb a tell. But I'm using past tense told so here The speaker is indicated at the beginning of the sentence. He and then the person receiving the information in this case me follows the verb. So he told me in this case the train was late. He told me the train was late. So this is a past situation. I received information from him. The information was this. He told me the train was late so you can change. Ah, the person speaking and the person receiving by changing thes two parts on either side of the for. My mother told my brother to clean his room, for example. So keep in mind when you use the verb tell or in this case past tense told, the idea is that it's more one way communication. It's not really a conversation in this case, he told me so. Meaning information is coming this way on Lee. I'm not sharing information with him, really. He's just sharing something with me. It's one way. So we use told to communicate that of course we could use said here. He said the train was late using tell or in this case past tense told just makes the feeling of one way communication stronger. He told me, Okay, now I want to go on to some very casual expressions that you see for reporting direct speech, especially in American English. The 1st 1 is this was all was also I've used this in past tense here. You may hear this in present, tense. She's all as in this example. Ah, but was all is quite common to so was all is a very casual way of using a verb. Like said. However, we use this to report direct speech. So these quotes show this is exactly the thing someone said these little quotation marks in this case, she was all You're not gonna believe this. So this is the exact statement the speaker She said in the past she said exactly this. We know this because we've used this reporting expression and in this case, in the written words, we see the quotation marks here. So when you're speaking or when you're listening for this, you won't hear she was all you'll hear. She was all so she was all You're not gonna believe this. It's quite fast. She was all she was all so sometimes this double you sound is very difficult to hear. You might just hear she's all she's all in which case it sounds like present tense. But in both cases, the basic meaning of just communicating speech remains. So don't worry too much about catching this w sound. So this she's all Ah, it is fine to understand what's going on another one that uses this same WAAS pattern is using, like, another very casual way to report direct speech. So in this case, who is speaking? My mom. So my mom was like, You can't go out this weekend. So in this sentence, too, these words here are exactly the words my mother said. But we use was like here. So you'll notice that these two expressions was all and was like While they're very, very casual, they're used to kind of report something that's may be shocking or surprising, or maybe a little bit gossipy in this case, Maybe the speaker is complaining. So it's very, very casual situations that we use thes expressions. And my mom was like so again, this double you sound My mom was like, this kind of disappears a little bit. We can also use it in present tense. My mom is like, but my mom was like, is good for a clear, past tense report. Okay, so we use the next pair, went and go to report speech very casually so you can see here There is past tense, went present tense. Go. We use them in the same way again. Just as with was all and was like we used these to communicate direct quotes, these air exact quotes, things people actually said. So they went, We're leaving. So again we could say they said, we're leaving, but using went again. Has this sort of very casual, maybe gossipy, like there's a little bit of exciting information there, perhaps. Ah, same thing with go. So I go fine. I'm leaving, too. So we use thes two together in very casual situations. Uh, that have kind of a quick, conversational feel about them. We can say these things very quickly in a pair. They went, we're leaving. So I go fine. I'm leaving, too. So having this kind of went and go match together feels very natural, I think, to native speakers. Same thing here. She was all and my mom was like using these together in the same kind of dialogue report. Sounds quite natural, I think. But generally, using a mix of all of these two reports statements is a really good idea. If you used the exact same expression to report report, report all the time, it sounds a little bit unnatural. Kind of stiff. Okay, so these are all for statements. These air offer statements. Let's look at two patterns for questions now. So here I have the past tense asked and inquired. Used here, Um, I chose these two. Just because I asked, is kind of the casual or the everyday verb we can use for questions inquired. Just sounds more formal. It's a more formal way of saying asked So some examples of this r. I asked about the menu, and I asked if there were any vacancies, these air to common patterns. I asked about some topic or I asked if and then there's some kind of inquiry point here. Asked if there were any vacancies here. Same thing we can do with inquired. He inquired about the company. So we see this Same about plus a topic point. Um, we can also with the verb ask, use a direct quote, too. So, for example, I asked, What are you doing that's also okay? We can use Ask with a direct quote. Um, you can also use it with inquired as well if you like, But perhaps this one is a little bit more useful for everyday conversations and everyday questions. So throughout this lesson, I've talked about using the past tense and the present tense for reporting. But what's the difference? So I want to talk a little bit about that here to finish that. So past tense and present ends both used to report speech, both find report speech here. I've used simple past and simple present tense. You might also hear progressive, tense in the past or in the present tense, but the difference between them present tense. If you use present tense, it feels like the story is happening now. So if I'm using present tense to report speech and maybe to share the points in the story as well, it sounds like the story. It's happening now. It's present, its present tense. It's happening in the present. So if I want my story to feel kind of lively and more exciting, I can use present tense to tell my story. If, however past tense is used, it sounds more like just a simple report. It's like you're just telling facts. What happened. There's not really, like a feeling of excitement. Necessarily, it's just simple reporting. So we see past tense and simple past tense story reporting in the news for example. So in the news, it's simple reports effect. What happened on that day? You'll see simple, past tense, used in English news reports. So this is kind of a key difference that you can think about when you're telling stories in your reporting information as well. All right, that's everything for this lesson. I hope that it was useful for you. If you liked the video, please make sure to give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and check us out in English. Class one No. One dot com for other good study tools, Of course, please feel free to drop us a message in the comments as well. Thanks very much for watching this episode, and I will see you again next time. Bye.
A2 tense report present tense speech present reporting Reported Speech in English - How to Report Dialogues and Questions 13 1 林宜悉 posted on 2020/03/25 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary