Reported speech and reporting verbs
Reported speech is how you tell someone what another person said or asked. The tense often moves back, pronouns change, and questions become statements.
Beyond say and tell, reporting verbs like suggest, deny and insist each take their own pattern, which the B2 lesson practises.
The essentials
- The tense usually moves back one step: “I'm tired” → She said she was tired.
- Say something, but tell someone something: He said he was late. He told me he was late.
- Reported questions use statement word order: She asked where I lived (not where did I live).
- Each reporting verb has its pattern: suggest + -ing, agree + to, deny + -ing, insist on + -ing.
Every lesson on this topic
Each lesson has a full explanation, examples, common mistakes and practice questions.
B1 (English at B1)
- She said she was tired: reported speech: Report what people said and asked, with the usual tense changes and pronoun changes
B2 (English at B2)
- It is said that… / He is believed to…: reporting what people think: Report opinions and claims impersonally, as news reports and formal writing do
- She suggested going / He denied taking it: reporting verbs: The pattern each reporting verb takes: -ing, to + infinitive, that, or a preposition
Other topics
- Present perfect or past simple?
- Talking about the past: English past tenses
- English conditionals: first, second, third and mixed
- English modal verbs: must, have to, should and more
- Talking about the future in English
- The passive in English
- Relative clauses: who, which, that, whose
- Linking words: although, despite, however, whereas
- -ing or to? Verb patterns in English
- Formal, professional and academic English
- Emphasis in English: inversion and cleft sentences