Reported Speech – Englisch Klasse 9

In reported speech, you report what someone said. The tense usually shifts back (backshift), and pronouns as well as time and place expressions change. Each section starts with a short overview and contains several exercises that get progressively harder.

Quick overview

Backshift: Simple Present → Simple Past, will → would, can → could, must → had to, Simple Past/Present Perfect → Past Perfect.
Pronouns: I → he/she, my → his/her, we → they.
Time/Place: now → then, today → that day, tomorrow → the next day, here → there.
Reporting verbs: not just said, but also told, explained, asked, replied …
Questions: normal word order, no do/does/did; yes/no questions with if/whether. Commands: tell/ask sb (not) to …

Section 1 · 3 exercises

1 · Basics

The building blocks: backshift of tenses and time & place words – from recognition to matching.

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Section 2 · 2 exercises

2 · Statements

Turn statements into reported speech – first gap-fill, then full transformation.

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Section 3 · 2 exercises

3 · Questions

Reported questions: word order, no do/does/did, if/whether – structure and transformation.

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Section 4 · 2 exercises

4 · Commands

Commands & requests with tell/ask sb to … – and negation with not to.

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Section 5 · 5 exercises

5 · Tricky cases

First negation only (not to), then mixed sentences – and finally an error correction exercise.

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