Direct vs. Indirect Speech in English: The Complete Guide for the TOEIC®

Direct speech reports words exactly as they were spoken, using quotation marks.

Indirect speech rephrases them without quotation marks.

In the TOEIC®, you will encounter these transformations primarily in Part 6 and 7: emails and reports that rephrase verbal instructions.

The classic trap? Forgetting to change pronouns and verb tenses, which results in grammatically incorrect sentences.

Why the TOEIC® Tests This Point

The test evaluates your ability to understand how information flows within a company. A manager says something in a meeting. A colleague rephrases it via email. This rephrasing follows specific rules that you must master in order to:

• Understand meeting minutes (Part 7)
• Identify rephrasing errors (Part 5/6)
• Grasp who said what in professional conversations

Typical contexts include management directives, rephrased client requests, or communicated company policies.

What Changes Every Time: From Direct to Indirect Speech

When you switch from direct speech to indirect speech, three elements systematically change.

Verb Tenses Shift Back One Step

If the introductory phrase is in the past tense, the verb tenses in the quoted speech shift back:

Direct:

• She said, "I work on the project every day."

Indirect:

• She said that she worked on the project every day.

Pronouns Adapt to the Narrator

The speaker's "I" becomes "he/she" when someone else reports what they said.

Direct:

• Tom said, "I will send my report tomorrow."

Indirect:

• Tom said that he would send his report the next day.

Time Markers Change Perspective

Direct:

• The manager said, "We need the data today."

Indirect:

• The manager said they needed the data that day.

Recurring Traps in Parts 5 and 6

Trap 1: Forgetting to Change Modals

Many candidates correctly change the main verbs but leave "will" or "can" unchanged.

Common Error:

• He said that he will attend the meeting.

Correction:

• He said that he would attend the meeting.

Trap 2: Keeping Quotation Marks with "that"

Indirect style never uses quotation marks. If you see "that," the sentence should not contain any direct punctuation.

Common Error:

• She mentioned that "the deadline is Friday."

Correction:

• She mentioned that the deadline was Friday.

Trap 3: Mixing Time Markers

As soon as you see "said" or "told" in the past tense, check words like "today" or "tomorrow" in the remainder of the sentence. In reality, this is where many people get tripped up.

Common Error:

• The director announced yesterday that the office will close tomorrow.

Correction:

• The director announced yesterday that the office would close the next day.

Questions and Commands in Indirect Speech

Questions Become Affirmative Clauses

The word order changes completely: you switch from subject-verb inversion to the normal order.

Direct:

• She asked, "Where is the conference room?"
• He asked, "Do you have the files?"

Indirect:

• She asked where the conference room was.
• He asked if/whether I had the files.

Use "if" or "whether" for yes/no questions, and the question word (what, where, when, why, how) for open-ended questions.

Commands Use Infinitive Structures

Direct:

• The supervisor said, "Submit your timesheet by Friday."

Indirect:

• The supervisor told us to submit our timesheet by Friday.

Note: For commands, you use "told + person + to + infinitive," never "said."

Cases Where Tenses Do Not Change

If the introductory sentence is in the present tense or if the information remains true, the tenses may stay the same.

Direct:

• He says, "I work in marketing."

Indirect:

• He says that he works in marketing.

General or permanent truths often keep their original tense:

Direct:

• The trainer said, "Practice improves performance."

Indirect:

• The trainer said that practice improves performance.

Quick Method for Part 6

When you spot reported speech in a fill-in-the-blank passage:

1. Identify the introductory verb (said, told, asked, mentioned) and its tense
2. Determine the sentence type (statement, question, command)
3. Check three points: verb tense, pronouns, time markers
4. Eliminate options with quotation marks or incorrect word order

Among the candidates we coach, those who improve fastest create flashcards with direct/indirect pairs in business contexts typical of the exam.

What we often see among our students: they master the theory but lose points on details. "This" becoming "that" or "here" becoming "there." These small changes often make the difference between a good and an excellent answer in Part 5.

Ready to Practice?

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