By Past tenses, Indirect speech

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...

Hi Viceidol,For reported / indirect speech, we convert the present tense to the past tense as shown below:will, wouldcan, couldmust, had toshall, shouldmay, might Therefore, #2 is correct.

Yogician wrote: What I was reading a novel, I came across a sentence which raised doubt that wheter it is talking about the Past Tense or Future Tense. The sentence is - "When he was grown up he would go and see it." As per the novel, a child was thinking about an item which he would like to...

Jackson6612 wrote: Direct Speech: He said, ''She is a beautiful girl.'' Indirect Speech: He said that she was a beautiful girl. Direct Speech causes no problem to me but I always find Indirect Speech obscure and weird. Why can't it be said ''he said that she is a beautiful girl''? If it were...

The correct version is I said I didn't want to live with her. There should be the consequence of tenses and tha past tense and the present tense in one sentence don't go together.

In reported speech it is understood that the verb tense is the result of changing from direct to indirect speech. 1) You say that if you see her you will show her your new bike. 2) You're not saying that if you saw her you would show her your new bike. Sentence number one in reported speech...

<i wonder if this is an instance--like in indirect speech--where the rule is flexible...that is, it has become acceptable to say "he told me HE'S happy" as well as the backshifted "he told me he WAS happy"...in the examples above, can we backshift the verb to "WAS" because "could" is a past...

to clarify this even further...so as to hopefully get an answer we say "i wish i knew what you WERE thinking right now"..."were", backshifting because of "knew" but i am asking in these examples if "could say"...functions a past tense...if it does...do we have the same type of situation (see...

You are right, those are not really subjunctives but... they are kinds of subjunctives! If those "was" are not past tenses, what else could they be? The meaning is like the one of the subjunctive tense. Rothkowitz wrote: do you see...my question is still unanswered Sorry, but the question...

well not really you see this is not a case of subjunctive....as i said in my first postr (cite fowler here)...there is no sequence of moods in english... therefore, for example, we do not say "if i were to say i were happy" we say, instead, "if i were to say i was happy..." you...