She said (that) she should call her mother She said (that) she could swim when she was four. She said (that) she could speak perfect English. She said (that) she had taken English lessons before. She said (that) she had been walking along the street. She said (that) she was living in London. It's exactly the same if you use 'that' or if you don't use 'that'.)īut, if the reporting verb is in the past tense, then usually we change the tenses in the reported speech: I've put it in brackets () to show that it's optional. (As I'm sure you know, often, we can choose if we want to use 'that' or not in English. We also may need to change words like 'my' and 'your'.

We don't need to change the tense, though probably we do need to change the 'person' from 'I' to 'she', for example. We just put 'she says' and then the sentence: ( Click here for more about using 'say' and 'tell'.) If this verb is in the present tense, it's easy. We use a 'reporting verb' like 'say' or 'tell'. Later, maybe we want to tell someone else what the first person said.

When do we use reported speech? Sometimes someone says a sentence, for example 'I'm going to the cinema tonight'. Click here to download this explanation in PDF. Click here for a list of reported speech exercises.