Who Said What? Passing On a Message

Imagine that a volunteer examines your lamp and says, "The switch is broken." At home, your partner mainly needs the result. You can report that the volunteer said the switch was broken. Use a quotation when the particular words matter, perhaps because someone wants to check a promise. A report can be shorter, but it must keep the original meaning.

Before changing pronouns, work out who each word describes. If a volunteer tells you, "I can repair your lamp," I means the volunteer and your means you. Your report might use she and my. Names are useful when two people could be she or he. Do not replace pronouns from a fixed list without checking the people.

You can practise this again in Rule out and Took or have taken? Choose the form for your message.

After said or told, English often moves the message's tense back: is becomes was, can becomes could, and will becomes would. An earlier past action can use had plus the past participle. Time words also need a check. If you report Monday's tomorrow on Wednesday, say Tuesday or the next day. A named day can make practical arrangements clearer.

Learn the usual tense changes first, then check whether the information still applies. You can keep a present tense for a current fact, such as the café's regular location. With a present reporting verb like says, there is usually no move into the past. Also, a past form after said does not automatically tell us that a fact has changed.

When reporting a question, put the subject before the verb: where the box was, rather than where was the box. For a yes-or-no question, use if or whether. Requests need another pattern: asked someone to do something. Told someone to do something often presents the message as an instruction. Choose a reporting verb that fits what the speaker was doing.

In conversation, small words such as that and had may be quiet. That can also be absent after said: both versions are grammatical. Listen for contractions too. In she'd finished, she'd means she had; in she'd return, it means she would. For dictation, recover the words you hear. For recall practice afterwards, cover the transcript and explain the message in your own words.

In a written update, name the source and include what the reader needs to do next. Use said with a statement, or told with a listener: told me, told us, told Anna. Put quotation marks around exact words only. Keep uncertainty too: might be ready is not a promise. After writing, check the people, the timing and how certain the original speaker sounded.