Hello once more guys and gals! Today's topic of discussion keeps focusing on better writing techniques. I'm going to talk about the sequence of tenses in the English language when writing, or speaking. What is this "sequence of tenses" you ask? Well, it's pretty simple. It is the general "timeline" followed by the actions in a sentence. What could be so complicated about that? When we write, we have a tendency to describe the action in the time it's taking place. We always try to maintain the same tense when writing a sentence, that way our reader can follow what we're saying more easily.
In this blog I'll talk specifically when using reported speech. This is when we tell somebody else something we've heard, or something someone else told us. Please watch this short video of me explaining this concept and pay attention to the examples.
Keep in mind to make these changes when reporting speech!
Direct Speech (quote)-------->-------------Reported Speech
Present----------->---------------Past
Present Continuous----------->---------------Past Continuous
Will--------------->------------Would
Can-------------->-------------Could
Remember to always stay in the tense you started with in a sentence since it will be easier for your reader to follow your train of thought. In my next post I'll introduce you to our next short story and I hope to see you all putting the sequence of tenses into practice in the essay you're going to write about the story. Until next time!
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