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As jwpat7 pointed out, it depends on circumstances. Here is how you might use each tense, with examples for each tense: Fred: 1.) "Hey, Jim, did Jack tell you he eats your chocolate?" In this example, Fred is really informing Jim that Jack eats Jim's chocolate, even though Fred is asking a question. We might call the questioner (Fred) a snitch, ...

Meaning This is Valley girl slang used to introduce quoted speech, also known as a quotative. It's a way of quoting a speaker by describing them according to their statement. It's similar to saying "he's like: [quote]", or "he goes: [quote]". "He's all: [quote]" can be read as "he was all like this: [quote]". Here's an example from Do you speak American? ...

I would like and I want are different ways of expressing volition. For that reason, it would be inaccurate to report I would like to swim as She said she wanted to swim. It has to be She said she would like to swim. This use of would is sometimes described as having ‘unreal meaning’, but in cases such as this it is perhaps better seen as expressing a ...

This is correct: “You Bi would like to swim.” = “You Bi wants to swim.” → “You Bi said she wanted to swim.” You can also use would unchanged: “I would like to swim.” → “You Bi said she would like to swim.” Here, you can analyse would as conditional—if You Bi went swimming, she would like it. Would is also (morphologically) the past form of ...

NB: I find it nicer to put "to say" before "that", though why I find that nicer is probably a subject for another post. I've done that here. If the class was in the past then the first example is fine. Lucy expected you in the class on Thursday. Where were you? Didn't she get the message? I sent her an email to say that I wouldn't come to the class. ...

Having looked at the site that @bigbadonk420 referred to in his answer, I disagree with that answer and interpretation of the quoted site. On my reading of that site, the two options for reported speech are (using the OP's quotation): with backshift: He said that his name was Harry without backshift: He says that his name is Harry There is no ...

1: Mom asked Gramma why she hasn't been answering 2: Mom asked Gramma why she hadn't been answering 3: Mom asked Gramma why she didn't answer In both #1 and #2, the implication is that Gramma has repeatedly failed to answer. But #1 further implies she was still ignoring the phone right up until when Mom asked why (or, noting StoneyB's comments ...

Strict sequence-of-tenses gets muddy when Speech time, Event time and Reference time overlap, as in your instance. When I got home yesterday, John called and said he will arrive next week. Here, the Event time (next week, the time of the event ‘I’ am speaking about in this clause) happens to lie in the future with respect to both the time when John ...

The default rule in English is indeed to backshift when you use past tense for reported speech. For example, see this Google Ngram, which shows that "He said his name was" is around 20 times as common as "He said his name is". On the other hand, if you want to emphasize the fact that the statement is still true, then you can indeed use the present tense ...

The parentheses are part of the speech; if there could be any doubt, the context makes it unquestionable: —Еh bien, mon prince. Genes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des поместья, de la famille Buonaparte. Non, je vous previens, que si vous ne me dites pas, que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, ...

It is not correct to say that the tense of the verb in a reported time clause never changes. It depends on whether the action or state in the time-clause is still true at the time of reporting. As an example of no tense change, imagine that Person A, three months ago, said to person B: "I will go to Italy when I finish school". If Person A is still at ...

The reporting has no influence on the tense. Imagine this conversation: "She went to Spain when she finished school." "Did she say that herself?" "Yes. She said she went to Spain when she finished school." Perfectly natural. Now let me amplify a bit: When thinking about this situation, one might think of "reported speech" as if a reporter ...

3 and 6 (and maybe 5, and just feasibly 4) are correct/valid. The other two are simply incorrect. I'd rather use shorter (but equivalent) examples, and separate the two sets, so let's consider... 1: I'll say "I have been hiding" 3: I'll say I had been hiding 5: I'll say I have been hiding 7: I'll say I will have been hiding 3 is definitely ...

I consider (5) and (6) to be the correct options. As seen in how do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another, the use of "had been" implies that the action took place prior to some other also-completed action of interest. So if you say (4) I will pronounce him dead and tell him he had been pronounced dead. then the most logical ...

In English reported speech the present tense in the actual words spoken becomes the past tense in the words when they’re reported. The reported forms of those two examples are ‘He asked me what kind of computers I had’ and ‘She asked me what music I liked.’ The situation has changed. The speaker reporting the speech is referring to something that was the ...

The expression does convey a sense of want, but it can take on several nuances, depending on the context. For example: "What do you want to do today?" "I would like to swim." sounds like a conversation between two friends, trying to schedule the day's activities. However: "Did you see Michael Phelps win that race yesterday?" "Yes – I would like ...

I found it a little difficult to decipher your question, but phrases like "He's all" and "I'm all" are slang for "He said" and "I said". If you want to use the slang, you can get away with the following: I'm all, "I don't think I'm gonna go." Then she was all, "I think you should go." Then I was all, "Why? There ain't nothin there I like?" Then she was ...

Since Ms. A didn't actually say “She had given up on the justice system...", there's no justification for introducing past perfect into a "reported speech" rendition anyway. But if Ms. A had used past perfect for that first verb, she could have used it for had committed suicide as well, if she'd wanted to. There would have been nothing inherently wrong ...

How about: John told Sean that he should let John help him. It gets a bit complicated because there are two singular males, but otherwise it is fairly straightforward. Other ways of rendering the imperative in indirect speech could be chosen instead, like "must"; or the entire "let" construction could be done away with in a less literal version: ...