“They say reported speech is easy“. That’s the title of VOA’s audio on reported speech.
When we want to tell someone what someone else has said, we can do so in two ways. One is to use exactly the same words the speaker used and to use quotation marks. That is called “direct speech”. The other way is to summarise or to talk about what someone has said. This is called “reported speech”.
Have a listen to see if you can remember the rules.
The English language is full of commonly confused words. These words may sound the same but mean different things.
Listen to this audio clip and learn the difference between “further” and “farther”, “lose” and “loose”, and “accept” and “except”.
According to VOA, every language in the world has words that express sounds. English examples are “Pow”, “Bam” or “Whizz”. Words you’ll find in comics. They’re called onomatopoetic words. More examples are the sounds a dog makes: Woof Woof! or the sounds of a cat: Meow Meow!
Listen to the audio to find out more about English onomatopoetic words.
If you’re not sure you understand the difference between the simple past (I did) and the present perfect (I have done), you might like to read or listen to the Voice of America’s useful report. A lot of language learners get these verb tenses mixed up, so you’re not alone.
