Indirect speech in Russian: use

Everyone sooner or later faces the need to convey orally or in writing what he was told. However, the method of quoting with the introduction of speech in quotes is not always suitable, because few people literally remember the words of the interlocutor. Then a phenomenon comes to the aid, such as indirect speech. In Russian, it has some of its features, which will be discussed in the article. Let's deal with this issue in more detail.

What is indirect speech

Indirect speech in Russian - this is one of the syntactic ways to communicate other people's words in the flow of their own words, retaining the meaning of the original utterance. It conveys narrative, motivational and interrogative sentences. In form, indirect speech is a complex sentence. The main part of the proposal is one in which a reference is made to the words of another person. For example, "he said", "she asked", "they asked". Pridatochnoy same part is the one that directly reflects the words that convey. For example, "that the weather is good," "so that he goes out into the street," "why do you need a passport?" A comma is placed between the two parts: "He said the weather was fine," "She asked him to go out into the street," "They asked why they needed a passport."

Rules related to unions

Now it is worthwhile to consider the ways in which indirect speech is expressed. The rules have their own characteristics. Let's look at the main ones. If the speaker simply shared the information, then the preposition "what" should be used. For example, Ivan says: "Today I will go to the theater." In the form of an indirect speech, it will look like this: "Ivan said that today he will go to the theater." If the speaker asked the interlocutor to do something, then they use the preposition "to." For example, Irina says: "Help me with my homework." This can be conveyed as follows: "Irina said that I helped her with her homework."

When conveying a question, indirect speech in Russian uses two methods, which depend on the type of the sentence. If the speaker, asking, uses the interrogative word ("where", "when", "why", "why", "how" and others), then it becomes an alliance. For example, Anna asked: "Where in Moscow can you eat deliciously?" Then her words are transmitted like this: "Anna asked where in Moscow you can eat deliciously." And the second method is used when there was no question word. For example, Nikita asked: "Are you going to the cinema today?" This is transmitted with the help of the particle "li": "Nikita asked if you will go to the cinema tonight."

Rules related to pronouns

It should be noted how pronouns usually change in indirect speech. So, "I", "we" are replaced by "he / she" and "they" respectively, because the person whose speech is being transmitted will no longer be an active subject of conversation. But "you" and "you / you", on the contrary, are replaced by "we" and "I". "He / she" and "they" are sometimes also subject to replacement. If a person said something about someone, and then his words are passed on to that person or these people, then use "you / you" or "you".

Pronouns are also added to the person's speech, if necessary. For example, if the boss gives the order: "Do this work by Thursday," the pronouncing word will be added by the pronoun "we": "The commander ordered us to do this work by Thursday."

Rules related to verbs

Also, sometimes indirect speech in Russian requires some grammatical manipulation with verbs. For example, the incentive is replaced by the indicative in the past tense. Suppose, Victor asked: "Pass me the pen." In an indirect speech, it will look like this: "Victor asked me to give him a pen."

Also sometimes it is necessary to change the verb tense - present on the past. For example, Daria said: "Today I'm going to prepare borsch." If her words are transmitted the next day, then we can say this: "Daria said that yesterday she was going to cook borsch." The adverb "today" is logically replaced by "yesterday".

Exercises on the understanding of indirect speech

It is not immediately easy to get used to such a feature of the Russian language as indirect speech. Exercises given below will help you to understand this more quickly.

You can try to translate into indirect speech the following simple sentences:

• Tyutchev wrote: "I love the storm in early May."
• Irina asked: "Give me the salt."
• Nietzsche asserted: "What does not kill me, makes me stronger."
• Dmitry asked: "What should I do with this cat?"
• Elina asked: "Are you going to university today?"
• Katya thought: "Do I have to go there tomorrow?"
• Constantine thought: "I wonder if I like her?"

Conclusion

As an inference, it should be said that, of course, there are pitfalls in such a phenomenon as indirect speech. The Russian language is rich in a variety of tricks that it is difficult to understand a foreigner, and sometimes even a carrier. However, this phenomenon is always subject to rules that do not even contain exceptions. So it is easy enough to understand the patterns by which indirect speech is formed. And when understanding comes, it will become much easier to use these rules in practice. Try and see that everything is much easier than it seemed at first glance.