He said to me, “Have you played cricket”? Direct Indirect Narration | English Grammar

In this video, learn Direct Indirect Narration with easy example and explanation in Hindi.

In today’s video we will continue learning how direct speech sentences are converted to indirect sentences. Today we will learn this in reference to three tenses Present Perfect Tense, Present Perfect Continuous Tense and Past Indefinite Tense for Interrogative sentences.

Present Perfect Tense:

Direct-He said to me, “ Have you played cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me  if I had played cricket.

Note- if the helping verb comes in the beginning then we use ‘if’ to remove the inverted commas and the question mark while converting from direct speech to indirect speech. Also always keep in mind that when an interrogative sentence in direct speech is converted to indirect speech, it no more remains in the question form.

Direct-He said to me, “Why have you played cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me why I had played cricket.

You already know that present perfect sentences are converted to past perfect sentences. Here ‘why’ will work as the connective sentence while converting from direct speech to indirect speech i.e, question word itself becomes the connective word.

Present Perfect Continuous Tense: It changes to past perfect continuous tense.

Direct- He said to me, “Have you been playing cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me if I had been playing cricket.

Direct- He said to me,”Why have you been playing cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me why I had been playing cricket.

Past Indefinite Tense- did is used in interrogative and negative sentences.

It changes to past perfect tense.

Direct- He said to me, “ Did you play cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me if I had played cricket.

Note: If we are using ‘did’ in a sentence then we always use the first form of a verb.

Direct- He said to me, “ Why did you play cricket?”
Indirect- He asked me why I had played cricket.

While learning about direct indirect speech please keep in mind that you are thorough with tenses.

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