Hello and welcome back. In this lesson, you will learn all about direct and indirect or reported speech. We will look at converting the three main types of sentences: statements, questions, and requests/instructions or advice, from direct to indirect speech. There are lots of examples and exercises throughout the video for you to practice. And make sure to watch all the way to the end because there is a final quiz to test your understanding. So let's get started. Music So, what do we mean by direct and indirect speech? Well, these are two ways of saying what someone else said in the past. For example, last weekend, some friends and I were planning to go see a movie. But one friend, Ben, couldn't join us. Ben said, "I have a dental appointment this evening," meaning he had to go to the dentist so he couldn't come with us. Now, here I'm repeating Ben's words exactly or directly without making any changes. This is called direct speech. But we don't always repeat the other person's words exactly because the words are not important, the message is important. So we can say it like this instead, "Ben said that he had a dental appointment that evening." This form is called indirect speech. It's also called reported speech because, like a news reporter, we are reporting that other person's words. Now, I want you to notice a couple of differences between the direct and indirect sentences. When we write direct speech, we always put quotation marks around the original words. This is to show that we are repeating the words exactly without any change. But in indirect speech, we don't use quotation marks. The second point is the word "that." This is used in indirect speech, but it is never used in direct speech. Now,...