Clay Lane Blog

Reported Speech

Posts tagged Reported Speech in the blog

December 6 November 23 OS

Reported Speech

Reported or indirect speech is speech that is given in summary form rather than transcribed word for word and placed between quotation marks. For example, this speech from Tolstoy’s War and Peace

“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Hippolyte “— so dull.”

may be reported as

Prince Hippolyte said that he was very glad that he had not gone to the Ambassador’s, as it would have been so dull.

Read this exchange from the same novel:

Anna Pávlovna: “Do you know the Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.”

Monsieur Pierre: “Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very interesting but hardly feasible.”

See if you can report the substance of the conversation in the same fashion as the example above. You may wish to begin with something like

Anna asked Pierre...