El Reported Speech o el también llamado “estilo indirecto”, es una estructura que se usa cuando queremos hacer mención a algo que alguien ha dicho previamente. Pero antes de empezar con los ejemplos y dar mayor claridad al asunto, hay unas palabras que debemos aprender antes de usar el estilo indirecto, ya que éstas se usan cuando queremos usar el estilo indirecto.
| Estilo directo (Direct speech) | Estilo indirecto (Reported peech) |
| Now | Then, at that moment |
| Today / Tonight | That day / That night |
| This morning | That Morning |
| Yesterday | The day before, the previous day |
| Tomorrow | The following day, the next day |
| Last month | The month before, the previous month |
| Here | There |
Hay algunas palabras más, pero esas son esenciales. Veremos el porqué hay que aprenderse estas palabras más adelante.
Bien, ahora vamos a ver cómo se realiza, porque hay una parte importante a la hora de pasar del estilo directo al indirecto, y es el tiempo verbal. Dependiendo de que tiempo verbal escogemos, el estilo indirecto deberá llevar uno u otro. Fijaros con atención:
| Estilo directo (Direct Speech) | Estilo indirecto (Reported Speech) |
| Present simple: “I eat hamburgers every day.” | Past simple: He said (that) he ate hamburgers every day. |
| Present continuous: “I am reading a book.” | Past Continuous: He said (that) he was reading a book. |
| Past simple: “I bought a new laptop.” | Past perfect: He said (that) he had bought a new laptop. |
| Past continuous: “I was playing tennis at 11 o´clock”. | Past Perfect Continuous: He said (that) he had been playing tennis at 11 o´clock. |
| Present Perfect: “I have finished my homework.” | Past Perfect: He said (that) he had finished his homework. |
| Past Perfect: “I had studied English for years.” | Past Perfect: He said (that) he had studied English for years. |
| Future (will): “I will go and buy some food.” | Conditional (Would): He said (that) he would go and buy some food. |
| Future (going to): “I am going to travel a lot.” | Was/were going to: He said (that) he was going to travel a lot. |
| Modal verbs: “I can play the piano very well.”“I must go home.” | He said (that) he could play the piano very well. He said (that) he had to go home. |
Nota: Además del past perfect y el condicional would, tampoco se cambia al usar los verbos modales could, should y might.
Si tenéis problemas a la hora de saber qué forma verbal es, echadle un vistazo al mini curso de gramática básica.
Ya sabemos los cambios que ocurren en las formas verbales (y verbos modales) al usar uno u otra forma. A continuación vemos que también cambia un poco la estructura al hacer referencia al tiempo, lugar y en preguntas. Y gracias a las palabras que he dicho que había que memorizar antes, hacer este tipo de estilo indirecto será más fácil. Veámoslo mejor con unos ejemplos:
| Estilo directo (Direct Speech) | Estilo indirect (Reported Speech) |
| “They live here”. He said. | He said (that) they lived there. |
| Alberto: “I don´t want to go now.” | Alberto said (that) he didn´t want to go then. |
| Jaime: “I started to work today.” | Jaime said (that) he had started to work that day. |
| Maria: “I wanted to go out yesterday.” | Maria said (that) she had wanted to go out last night. |
| Felicity: “I´m going to go to Spain next week.” | Felicity said (that) she was going to Spain the following week. |
| Estilo directo (Direct Speech) | Estilo indirect (Reported Speech) |
| Luke: “What are you doing for a living?” | Luke asked me what I did for a living. |
| Lisa: “Where can we go tonight?” | Lisa asked where we could go that night. |
| Mario: “When are you going to come back?” | Mario asked when I was going to come back. |
| Anthony: “Who are you?” | Anthony asked me who I was. |
| Gary: “How much money have you spent?” | He asked me how much money I had spent. |
| Lucy: “Which lipstick did you choose?” | She asked me which lipstick I had chosen. |
| Elliott: “Whose cat is missing?” | She asked whose cat was missing. |
| Scott: “Isn´t that Jaime´s cat?” | Scott asked me if that wasn´t Jaime´s cat. |
Como véis, he usado solamente en los ejemplos los verbos “say” y “ask” para que sea más fácil de aprender, pero hay una infinidad de verbos que se suelen utilizar en el estilo indirecto como pueden ser “invite”, “complain”, “suggest”, “refuse”, “insult”, y un largo etcétera. Con práctica y más práctica automaticamente uno sabrá reconocer que verbo hay que usar.
Para practicar os dejo con estas dos páginas con ejercicios:
Sherton English
Espero que os haya resultado útil y no muy complicado la explicación :)