Question

Choose the indirect speech of the given sentence.
Vihaan said to me, “What is your name?”

A) Vihaan asked me what is my name.
B) Vihaan asked me what my name is.
C) Vihaan asked me if my name was.
D) Vihaan asked me what my name was.

Answer 1

Hint: Indirect speech is an important part of the English language. When something is said by the first person to the second person that was already said by some third person is referred to as indirect speech.

Complete answer:

In this case, the sentence given is indirect speech. Therefore, when the sentence will be changed into indirect speech then the punctuation marks will not be needed. The sequence of the sentence changes from the subject-verb-object format.

Therefore, keeping in mind the hint and the point mentioned above, we will analyze each option to identify the correct one.

In option ‘A’, ‘said to’ is changed to ‘asked’ in the indirect speech which is correct. But in the second part of the sentence, the sequence of the subject-verb-object format is not changed. It is the same as indirect speech. Therefore, option A is wrong.

In option B, the first part of the sentence is correct were ‘said to’ is changed to ‘asked’ in indirect speech. In the second part of the sentence, we will look at the phrasing now. The second part is not in the format of the subject-verb-object. Also, the second-person pronoun is changed into the first person. Therefore, option B can be possibly the correct answer.

Option C is incorrect. This is because the meaning of the sentence is only changed. The sentence originally means that Vihaan is asking about the name but under this option, the sentence means that Vihaan is assuming the name to be something so and so.

In option D the subject-verb-object format is not changed in the second part of the sentence. Also, the tense of the sentence is changed from present to past which is wrong. Therefore, option D will also be wrong.

Note: There are various rules prescribed in English grammar related to the conversion of sentences into direct or indirect speech. Therefore, one should learn and understand these rules to identify the correct answer in such questions.