Direct and Indirect Speech

Direct Speech / Quoted Speech

Saying exactly what someone has said is called direct speech (sometimes called quoted speech)
Here what a person says appears within quotation marks ("...") and should be word for word.
For example:
She said, "Today's lesson is on presentations."
or
"Today's lesson is on presentations," she said.

Indirect Speech / Reported Speech

Indirect speech (sometimes called reported speech), doesn't use quotation marks to enclose what the person said and it doesn't have to be word for word.
When reporting speech the tense usually changes. This is because when we use reported speech, we are usually talking about a time in the past (because obviously the person who spoke originally spoke in the past). The verbs therefore usually have to be in the past too.
For example:

Direct speech	Indirect speech
"I'm going to the cinema", he said.	He said he was going to the cinema.

 Tense change

As a rule when you report something someone has said you go back a tense: (the tense on the left changes to the tense on the right):

Direct speech		Indirect speech
Present simple Mother said, ”I am cooking rice.”	›	Past simple Mother said that she was cooking rice
Present continuous She said, "I'm teaching English online."	›	Past continuous She said she was teaching English online.
Present perfect simple She said, "I've been on the web since 1999."	›	Past perfect simple She said she had been on the web since 1999.
Present perfect continuous She said, "I've been teaching English for seven years."	›	Past perfect continuous She said she had been teaching English for seven years.
Past simple She said, "I taught online yesterday."	›	Past perfect She said she had taught online yesterday.
Past continuous She said, "I was teaching earlier."	›	Past perfect continuous She said she had been teaching earlier.
Past perfect She said, "The lesson had already started when he arrived."	›	Past perfect NO CHANGE - She said the lesson had already started when he arrived.
Past perfect continuous She said, "I'd already been teaching for five minutes."	›	Past perfect continuous NO CHANGE - She said she'd already been teaching for five minutes.

Interrogative Sentence:

Direct    : He said to me, ” are you going today?”

Indirect                : He asked me where I was going

Request:

Direct    : He said to his friend, ” please lend me your pencil.”

Indirect : He asked his friend to be kind enough to lend him his pencil

Entreaty:

Direct     : He said to his teacher,“  Pardon me sir.”

 Indirect : He bagged teacher to pardon him

Forbade:

Direct    : She, said her daughter, ” do not go there ”

Indirect                : She forbade her daughter to go there

Exclamatory:

Direct : He said, ”Hurray ! My friend has come

Indirect: He exclaimed with joy that his old friend has come