Question

Change the following statement into indirect speech-
He said to me, “Why do you want to go home?”
a)He told me that why did you wanted to go home.
b)He asked me that why I wanted to go home.
c)He asked me if why I wanted to go home.
d)He asked me why I wanted to go home.

Answer 1

Hint: Direct speech refers to reporting the exact words of a speaker, whereas Indirect speech refers to reporting the statement of a speaker in one’s own words without changing its meaning.

Complete answer:
As given in the hint, indirect speech is written in the past tense form of the verb as given in the direct speech.
Example- (1) She said to me, “I am going to the loo.”
(2) She told me that she was going to the loo.
We can conclude that (1) is reported in the direct speech as it presents the exact words of a speaker, whereas (2) is reported in the indirect speech as it portrays the speaker’s words in the past tense form of the verb.
We need to follow certain rules while changing a statement from direct to indirect speech-
We remove the quotation marks in indirect speech.
We change the tense of the verb in its corresponding past tense form.
In interrogative sentences, we replace ‘said’ with ‘asked’ to produce the tone and style of a question.
In the given question: We can see that X asked Y why he wanted to go home.
Let’s look at the given options-
Option a- ‘He told me that why did you wanted to go home’ is an inappropriate option, because we use ‘asked’ as the reporting verb in interrogative sentences. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
Option b- ‘He asked me that why I wanted to go home’ is an inaccurate option, because we cannot use both ‘asked’ and ‘that’ together. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
Option c- ‘He asked me If why I wanted to go home’ is an inappropriate option, because we cannot use both ‘if’ and ‘why’ together. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
Option d- ‘He asked me why I wanted to go home’ is an appropriate option, because we can see the correct use of ‘asked’ and ‘why’ as per the above given rules. Hence, it is the correct option.
The correct answer is Option ‘d’.

Note: We use the conjunction ‘that’ in positive sentences. Hence, we replace ‘that’ with the corresponding ‘interrogative word’.