By Tenses, Direct speech

Let us recast the sentence in direct speech, that is, you are speaking to Mark, "When you arrive (simple present tense is most suitable here - I wonder you can use any other tense), we shall/will go out for dinner."When you turn that into an indirect speech, the sentence will become,...

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."...

Should I use "is" or "was"?I thought a spider is/was an insect, but it is in fact an arachnid. Use "was". This is not reported speech! (And the first part is not a universal truth anyway; it's a universal falsehood!) This is one of the most typical patterns...

Sorry for starting it again, but I am still not quite sure in this case. I was taught that when talking about universal truths or general knowledge, the present tense should be used in indirect speech. By the way, I suppose you are just making up an example quickly. I think you know the sun IS...

I'm not a native speaker but I am pretty sure the version with the present tense "I though I know" sounds quite odd. You could hear something similar when "I know" is reported as direct speech, or is not really linked to "I thought":There was this girl, you know,...

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.

Yoong Liat wrote: The teacher said, "The world is round." In reported speech, it would be The teacher said that the world is round. One of my English usage books says it can be reported as The teacher said that the world was round. ( was consistent with said in tense) What do you think? ...

direct speech: He said, "John is honest." inrect (indirect) speech: He said that John was honest. He said that John was honest (ok) He said that John is honest is also correct if he thinks that John is an honest person.

Infinik wrote: Viceidol wrote: direct speech: He said, "John is honest." inrect speech: He said that John was honest. I think both sentences are perfectly OK. The second one means that, John was honest at the time of speaking. So it does not imply whether John is honest now or not, we...