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Answer:

QUESTION;

• When changing a statement from direct speech to reported speech, we often shift from the present tense to the past tense because the sentence itself is now in reported speech so it only means that the event/conversation took place already in the past.

• Why is it, then, that whenever we have a direct statement in the simple past tense, we change it to the past perfect tense when reported?

Answer: we change it to the past perfect tense when reported because a past perfect tense is a verb tense used to talk about actions that were completed before some point in the past. Since it was already in the past simple form it is only correct to let the readers know that conversation/situation had already taken place (present tense, past tense) Remember, we can use the past perfect to show the order of two past events. The past perfect shows the earlier action and the past simple shows the later action.

Explanation:

We use the simple past to say what happened in the past, often in sequential order. The past perfect expresses events and actions that occurred prior to another past action (usually expressed in the simple past). In spoken English, it is common to use only the simple past and not the past perfect.

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