Suppose, you want to tell somebody what your friend Riya said. There are two ways of doing this: Direct Speech and Indirect speech.

The first way, You can repeat Riya’s exact words without change:

Riya said, ‘I’m feeling ill.’

This type of reporting is called direct speech. 

Direct speech refers to the direct quotation of something that someone else said.

It is sometimes known as quoted speech because we use quotation marks to show direct speech.

American English uses double quotation marks ( “ ” ), while British English typically uses single quotation marks ( ‘ ’ ).

The second way,  you can use indirect speech:

Riya said that she was feeling ill.

When we tell other people what someone else told us without directly quoting that person, it is called indirect speech.

Indirect speech is also known as reported speech or indirect quotation.

In the reported speech, we write or present in our own words what someone else said.

Reporting and Reported Clause

Both direct speech and indirect consist of reporting clause and reported clause.

Reporting Verbs

We use reporting verbs to introduce the information that was spoken previously.

Both direct and indirect speech use reporting verbs.

The most common so-called “reporting verbs” are say, tell and ask.

1. Tell (Reporting Verb)

When we use tell, we need to use another person’s name or a personal pronoun as an indirect object after tell. ( tell somebody…). We don’t use to after tell.

For Example:

He told me he was sad. (Not “told to me”)

2. Say (Reporting Verb)

We can use to me etc after say if we want to, but we can’t say “He said me.” 

3. Ask (Reporting Verb)

We can use to me etc after ask if we want to. “Are you comfortable?” He asked me. 

Other reporting verbs include ask, instruct, explain, mention, suggest, claim, and many more.