27. Direct & Indirect Speech

Indirect speech is used when we convey the thoughts of the speaker rather than the actual words spoken.

Example: 

Riya said that she had gone to the market.

Features:

1. It is also called as reported speech or narration.
2. No inverted commas (''  ") are used.
3. The actual words are not reported but it's meaning is kept intact.
4. Punctuation marks  except full stop & comma are removed.
5. Instead of comma (,), that is used after the reporting verb to separate the indirect speech from the rest of the sentence.
6. The structure of the sentence, pronouns, verb tenses, words showing time and position, etc. are changed as per the rules.

Thus, we use direct speech & indirect speech to report what a person has said or spoken.

Let's understand the rules to convert direct speech to indirect speech.