Question

Change the following statement into indirect speech.
The teacher said to the student, “Do not talk nonsense”.
A) The teacher said to the student that do not talk nonsense.
B) The teacher forbade the student to talk nonsense.
C) The teacher ordered the student to talk nonsense.
D) The teacher asked the student not to talk nonsense.

Answer 1

Hint: Indirect speech is also known as reported speech and it Is usually used to talk about the past, so we change the tense of the words spoken. Indirect speech does not contain inverted commas. For example: She said to me, “I am writing a novel” – Direct speech; She told me that she is writing a novel – Indirect speech.

Complete answer:
The given statement Is in direct speech: The teacher said to the student, “Do not talk nonsense”.
Direct speech is a sentence in which exact spoken words are used in quotation marks or inverted commas. It is directly given in the question that we have to give the indirect speech of the given sentence.

Option A) The teacher said the student that does not talk nonsense – is an incorrect answer because ‘The teacher said the student that does not talk nonsense’ is a wrong sentence and gives different meaning. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.

Option B) The teacher forbade the student to talk nonsense – is the correct answer because ‘The teacher forbade the student to talk nonsense’ is the indirect speech of the given statement. The meaning of forbade is ‘to not allow something to do or command, order, warn’. Thus, this is the correct answer as the teacher warns or commands the students to not talk nonsense.

Option C) The teacher ordered the student to talk nonsense – is an incorrect answer because ‘The teacher ordered the student to talk nonsense’ states that the teacher is giving order to her/his students to talk nonsense in the class. However, this option is just opposite of the statement given in the question. Therefore, this is an incorrect answer.

Option D) The teacher asked the student not to talk nonsense – is an incorrect answer because ‘The teacher asked the student not to talk nonsense’ is not the indirect speech of the given statement. In this option, the teacher is asking students not to talk nonsense, however, this does not give the meaningful Indirect speech. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Direct speech - The teacher said to the student, “Do not talk nonsense”.
Indirect speech - The teacher forbade the student to talk nonsense.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘B’.

Note: Indirect Speech is used to report something in our own words. The rule for converting direct speech to reported speech is verb + indirect object + to-clause. The indirect object is the person spoken to. Verbs in case of order can be command, order, warn, forbid. Thus, the correct statement is - The teacher forbade the student to talk nonsense.