English · Ethics in Business
Reported speech — reporting statements
Turning exactly what someone said into someone else's account of it
6 minutes
The academic content is in Arabic, as at the BAC and as in the app.
What the syllabus expects from you
- Converting direct statements to reported statements (tense back-shift, pronoun/time-word changes)
The method
- Back-shift one tense step; swap this/here/now/ago for that/there/then/before
The common mistakes
- Forgetting the tense back-shift
- Keeping 'said to' instead of 'told'
From the lesson
A workplace inspector writes her report the next day. She cannot copy his exact words as they stand: she has to turn them into a reported statement.
The vocabulary
- say vs tell (قال مقابل أخبر)
- reported statement (قول منقول)
What is not on the syllabus
- Reported questions/instructions (treated in the Feelings and Emotions unit)