Cover of the textbook On Screen B2+ - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 1

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 3c - Grammar in use for the textbook On Screen B2+ - Student's Book with authors Virginia Evans and Jenny Dooley from Express Publishing

Question

How do tenses change in reported speech? Find the reported sentence in the joke. Rewrite it as a direct statement.

Answer

In reported speech the tenses change as follows:

  • present simple ↦ past simple
  • present continuous ↦ past continuous
  • present perfect ↦ past perfect
  • past simple ↦ past perfect
  • past continuous ↦ past perfect continuous
  • future simple ↦ would
  • can ↦ could

Reported Speech

The forecaster said that on the one hand it might be fine, but on the other hand it might be cold.

Direct Speech

"On the one hand it may be fine, but on the other hand it may be cold," said the forecaster.