Present simple reported speech

Grammar explanations Present simple tense rules
Present simple use
Present simple typical words
Present simple reported speech
Present simple passive
Present simple spelling rules
Exercises Present Simple

Reported Speech in Present Simple tense is shown in the following sentence:

"I write an email every day", he says.

The next sentence shows how this sentence looks in Reported Speech.

He says (that) he writes an email every day.

As you can see if the verb ( in our case: SAY ) is used in present tense, then it is not necessary to change the tenses. The next sentence shows what is going to happen when we use the verb ( SAY ) in past tense.

"I write an email every day", he said.

If the change the sentence above into Reported Speech it is going to look like this:

He said (that) he wrote an email every day.

As you an see we had to change Present Simple Tense into Past Simple Tense. The table below shows the changes required in Present Simple in Reported Speech.

He says (that) Present Simple Present Simple

The changes of tenses showed above are very 'mechanical'. Knowing them is very useful when you take any exams or tests in English. The truth is that our sample sentence can be also changed in the following way:

"I write an email every day", he said. He said he writes an email every day.

Such a change is also possible in the situation when the person still writes emails every day and the person wasn't writing an email at the time when this sentence was said.