Question

Change the following dialogue in the Reported Speech.
Reema : What do you want to do?
Shalu: I want to have some rest.
Reema: Are you tired? Did you do a lot of work today?
Shalu: Yes, I have done a lot of work today.

Answer 1

Hint: Reported speech, as the name suggests, is a speech that is made by someone and told by someone else. Reported speech is of two types - 1) Direct speech 2) Indirect speech.
E.g. - Kaustubh: I had a good day.
Reported speech - Kaustubh said “I had a good day.” (Direct speech)
Or Kaustubh said that he had a good day. (Indirect speech)
In the case of direct speech, we write the exact words in inverted commas while in the case of indirect speech we write in our own words.

Complete answer:
Some important rules for writing in reported speech are as follows-
1. Simple present tense changes to simple past.
2. Simple past tense changes to past perfect.
3. Changes in linking verbs from direct to reported speech -: ‘Will’- ‘would’, ‘is/am/are’-’was/were’, ‘was/were/has been/have been/had been’ - ‘had been’
4. There is no change in the past perfect tense.
5. Changes in pronouns from direct to reported speech-: I-he/she, We-they, My-my, Yours- his/her, Our-their, Me- him/her, Us-them.
6. Changes in time and place -: here - there, today- that day etc.
7. In the case of general truths we don't change tense in the reported speech.
8. We use the ‘reporting verb+that’ in reported speech. E.g. Rani: I am busy. Reported speech - Rani said that she was busy.
9. If reported speech uses the reporting verb in present tense then there is no change in the main verb.
10. If reported speech uses the reporting verb in past tense then there is a change in the main verb as well.
11. If the given speech is an interrogative sentence then in reported speech we use ‘if’ otherwise we use ‘that’.

To convert the given lines into reported speech, we will apply rules 1, 2,8 and 11 from above. The reporting verb will be ‘asked’ and ‘replied’ because it is a conversation between two people.

Reena asked what she wanted to do.
Shalu replied that she wanted to have some rest.
Reema asked if she was tired and that if she had done a lot of work that day.
Shalu replied that she had done a lot of work that day.

Note:
- We may or may not use ‘that’ in the reported speech. We must use it only if it adds grammatical sense to the sentence. Also, the interrogative sentences converted to reported indirect speech do not have ‘that’ in their sentence.
- The interrogative sentence is always written as a normal sentence in reported speech and not as a question.