Exercises - Indirect speech (2)
Level A2 - B1
Match the indirect speech to the direct speech by selecting the suitable direct speech sentence.
Grammar rules
This is how the tense changes from direct to indirect speech when a tense shift is needed:
Simple Present (play) → Simple Past (played)
Present Progressive (are playing) → Past Progressive (were playing)
are going to (Future) → were going to
Simple Past (played) → Past Perfect (had played)
Present Perfect (have played) → Past Perfect (had played)
Past Perfect (had played) → Past Perfect (had played)
Future Simple (will play) → would (would play)
can → could
You will often need to change the place names, times and personal pronouns as well:
Personal pronouns depending on the meaning of the sentence
tomorrow → the following day
yesterday → the day before
today → that day
Demands and orders are expressed using the infinitive (not) to:
He told/asked us (not) to play there.
In indirect speech, questions become affirmative sentences. Use the question word to introduce the question; for questions without a question word, use if or whether.
She asked us when we played there.
She wanted to know if/whether we played there.