Select the most appropriate indirect form of the given sentence.
Cornelius said to Pauline, “This house has been far too large for me since the death of my wife.”
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The correct answer is option 2 i.e. Cornelius told Pauline that that house had been far too large for him since the death of his wife.
The rules for changing Direct Speech to Indirect Speech:
Remove the quotation marks and introduce the reported speech with "that".
"said to" changes to "told" because it’s a more natural and common way to report speech in English.
"This" changes to "the" because "this" is often changed to "the" or "that" in reported speech, depending on context.
"me" changes to "him" because it is referring to Cornelius in the third person.
"has been" changes to "had been" because the reporting verb "said" is in the past tense. In reported speech, present perfect tense usually changes to past perfect tense.
"my" changes to "his" to match the perspective of Cornelius in the third person.
Therefore, the correct answer is 'Cornelius told Pauline that that house had been far too large for him since the death of his wife.'