Indirect Speech

When we work with this topic we think of "transforming" direct into indrect speech or vice versa, but we should take into account how frequent it is in our daily life, especially when we "reproduce" a previous conversation. Let's see an example:
"Yesterday I saw Peter and he told me he was working in another place and that he wanted to move his apartment for a big house in the countryside. He said he had met a girl two years ago and he wanted to get married soon so he was looking for a new house. I gave him my congratulations and asked him if I knew the girl but he said he didn't think so".
We also worked in class with the structure: COMPLEMENT + INFINITIVE; let's see some examples:

• "Don't close the window, will you?" --- She asked me not to close the window
• "Can you come with me, please?" --- He asked me to go with him

To finish with, pay attention to the use of TELL and SAY; the first one is used with personal complement while the second goes without it as you can see in these examples:

• Tom told her/Susan he had to work until late
• Tom said he had to work until late

Here you are some exercises to work with this: exercise 1   exercise 2    exercise 3    exercise 4

Remember the exception of using TELL without personal pronouns: to tell the truth, to tell a lie, to tell a story/a tale, to tell a joke.