Page 1 of 1

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:42 am
by Draco_03
toweter wrote:Put the following statements and questions into reported speech with the introductory verbs in the simple past.
Simple past is was.
You said is, wich is present

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:45 am
by patrikG
The second sentence is indirect speech, which uses the tense simple past.

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:53 am
by phpScott
Man it has been too long since I took a class dealing with problems like this?
I know how to do it but what it is called would stump me to know end.

future: will be
present: am, is
past: was

Re: another grammatical question ;-)

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:12 am
by Weirdan
toweter wrote: here's another grammatical question (my last one was lost because of the exchange of the php dn-server a few months ago..). i hope i don't annoy you with my questions about english grammar, but i don't know a board about english grammar and asking here is the fastest way ;-)
bbc.co.uk has excellent site about english grammar and learning english in general.
toweter wrote: The exercise I had to solve:
Put the following statements and questions into reported speech with the introductory verbs in the simple past.
Given statement: A girl: "I am interested in politics." (TO SAY)
My sentence: "A girl said she is interested in politics."
Expected sentence: "A girl said she was interested in politics."

I thought if the girl said "I am interested..." she is now still interested in politics and the expected sentence says she was interested in politics, but she isn't any more!?

Is the sentence with "is" wrong or is it right, too?
Take a look: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn ... tv71.shtml

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:22 pm
by d3ad1ysp0rk
was is basically saying that she used to be, which may or may not mean she still is.
is, directly says that at the current moment, she happens to be interested in politics.

If you were talking to someone on the street about what she said, your sentance would be perfect, but they asked for the past tense version.