Reported speech

You are a busy person. I’m a busy person. English grammar takes a long time to learn.

Today we’re going to look at reported speech. But we’re not going to go through a whole book. We’re not going to learn everything. We’re going to learn one point that you need to remember when you forget everything else. This is the one most important thing. And we’re going to do it in 90 seconds because I know how busy you are.

This clock is going to start now.

Reported speech - what’s the tip? What is the secret? Just four words: Move the tense back .

Now what does that mean? That means, for example:

We’re at a party, we’re having a great time. You come and ask me, “Finn would you like a cigarette?” And I say, “No, I don’t want a cigarette, in fact, I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life.” Wow, that’s quite interesting, you think. I’m going to tell my friend. Right, OK, there’s your friend. How do you tell them? You use reported speech.

OK, so if I said, “I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life,” what tense is that? I’ve never smoked is present perfect. Right, if you want to tell your friend what do you do? Using reported speech? You move the tense back.

So you say: Finn said he had never smoked a cigarette in his life.

There it is. I’ve still got 20 seconds… what about that? We moved the tense back.

So if the sentence is in the present simple, move it to the past simple. Easy.

Remember that, you won’t go far wrong in life. We’re really busy, but hey - six seconds to go, you’re looking great - remember my point - move the tense back. See you.