By Direct speech, Past perfect

I walked to the nurse desk and asked for a bottled water and one of the nurses told me that I couldn't take any liquid before surgery. Instead, she told me to get some rest. I walked back to my room and told my mom. Mom said, "Sounds like she knows what she's talking about."...

Hello. Sorry to hear you're feeling uncomfortable with this type of activity. But you're not alone: I would be, too!The sentences lack context, which makes it difficult to tell when tense changes are necessary and when they are not (among other things).There is one sentence that is wrong...

Definitely not the present perfect! The second 'if' in your sentence means 'whether', so I'm going to change it in order to avoid any "if' confusion".- If I was on vacation, the last thing I would care about would be whether I had closed the fridge."The...

Hi Pres1dentYou should break up long posts such as this one into several short posts. That way it's much easier for other people to comment.I've made suggestions. Some of the sentences in these exercises don't sound terribly natural, so there are also suggestions in places where there were no...

Hi, Daisy said that she got mails mail/letters from her friend.How can this sentence be written in direct speech? Daisy said, "I get mail from my friend". Or she might have said, "I got mail from my friend". The Past Perfect tense in the longer reported form Daisy said that she had got mail...

Kooyeen wrote:Thanks! Different sentences, same structures, same comments of yours, new comments of mine: 1. When I asked Amanda, she told me that she had been cheating on her boyfriend. This sounds closer in time to went (now asked) to me <-- Now, I'd say she was still cheating 2. When I...

Hi TomThe the past perfect is frequently not used in reported speech and many grammar books also accept this. The past perfect continuous is probably used even more rarely. Here are my thoughts:First of all, Pucca is right about using 'watching' rather than 'seeing'.Second, we need to know what...

Hi, India has far fewer tigers living in the wild than had been thought, initial results from a major new study suggest. The Wildlife Institute of India census showed tiger numbers falling in some states by two-thirds in five years. A final report is due out in December. India's last major...

India has far fewer tigers living in the wild than had been thought, initial results from a major new study suggest. The Wildlife Institute of India census showed tiger numbers falling in some states by two-thirds in five years. A final report is due out in December. India's last major...

Hi, To write ' Media reports said the priest had complained to the police ...' is correct. This is indirect speech. I don't think this has some past perfect aspects. It seems like past perfect to me. Tense is tense. Do you think that past perfect used with indirect speech is not 'real' past...