REPORTED SPEECH/ESTILO INDIRECTO

Se emplea cuando queremos contar algo que otra persona ha dicho antes.

Este recurso recibe el nombre de Reported Speech (Estilo Indirecto) y veremos a continuación un ejemplo:

"I go to school everyday", Alice said. (Estilo Directo)
"Yo voy a la escuela todos los días", dijo Alicia.

Alice said that she went to school everyday. (Estilo Indirecto)
Alicia dijo que ella iba a la escuela todos los días.

Para poder convertir una oración de Estilo Directo a Indirecto podemos introducir la frase utilizando diferentes verbos como por ejemplo: answer (responder), suggest (sugerir), explain (explicar), say (decir), tell (contar), promise (prometer).

También debemos tener en cuenta que si la oración en Estilo Directo se encuentra en Present Simple, al pasarla a Estilo Indirecto no es necesario cambiar el tiempo verbal. En otros casos, al convertir una oración a Reported Speech el verbo principal retrocede un tiempo verbal como muestra el siguiente cuadro:

Estilo Directo	Estilo Indirecto
Present Simple I go to school every day	Presente Simple / Pasado Simple He said that he goes to school every day He said that he went to school every day
Present Continuous I am going to school	Past Continuous He said that he was going to school
Past Simple I went to school	Past Perfect He said that he had gone to school
Present Perfect I have gone to school	Past Perfect He said that he had gone to school
Present Perfect Continuous I have been going to school	Past Perfect Continuous He said that he had been going to school
Simple Future I will go to school	Condicional Simple He said that he would go to school
Future Perfect I will have gone to school	Condicional Perfecto He said that he would have gone to  school

En el caso de utilizar verbos modales los cambios a realizar son los siguientes:

Directo	Indirecto
CAN I can study the lesson	COULD He said that he could study the lesson
MAY I may study the lesson	MIGHT He said that he might study the lesson
WILL I will study the lesson	WOULD He said that he would study the lesson
MUST I must study the lesson	HAD TO He said that he had to study the lesson

Algo que debemos tener en cuenta es que cuando utilizamos algunas palabras indicadoras de lugar y de tiempo es necesario que se cambien, adecuándolas al sentido y al tiempo de la oración:

Directo	Indirecto
now	at that moment / then
today	that day
last night	the night before
tonight	that night
this afternoon	that afternoon
this month	that month
next week	the following week
here	there
tomorrow	the following day