Answer — Exercise 1
3c - Grammar in use·On Screen B2+ - Student's Book
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.