Tenses in Direct and Indirect Speech — Original English
original-english.com › tenses-in-direct-andJun 01, 2021 · Tenses in Direct and Indirect Speech — Original English. Direct speech consists of the exact words a person says or thinks. Indirect speech reports what someone has said or thought. In indirect speech, the tense of the verb depends on both the tense of the verb in the main clause (the verb of saying, thinking, promising, etc) and the tense of the verb in the words actually used by the person doing the speaking, thinking, promising, etc.