Choose the option that is the most appropriate conversion of the following sentence into Direct Speech.
He said that he had been trying to book the tickets since the previous morning.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Correct Answer: He said, "I have been trying to book the tickets since yesterday morning."
Explanation:
• Tense change: Past Perfect Continuous tense (had been trying) in indirect speech corresponds to Present Perfect Continuous tense (have been trying) in direct speech when reporting ongoing actions from a past reference point.
• Pronoun change: The third-person pronoun he shifts to the first-person pronoun I to reflect the speaker's own words.
• Time expression: The indirect phrase the previous morning changes back to yesterday morning in direct speech.
• Punctuation: The conjunction that is removed, followed by a comma and opening quotation marks for the reported speech.