Direct speech refers to reproducing another person’s exact words or saying exactly what someone has said (sometimes called quoted speech)
Here what a person says appears within quotation marks ("...") and should be word for word.

For example:
She said, "Today's lesson is on presentations."
or
"Today's lesson is on presentations," she said.
• indirect speech reproducing the idea of another person’s words that doesn’t use question mark to enclose what the person said and it doesn’t have to be word for word. Indirect speech is sometimes called reported speech.

For example:
Direct speech :"I'm going to the cinema", he said.
Indirect speech : He said he was going to the cinema.
• When reporting speech the tense usually changes. This is because when we use reported speech, we are usually talking about a time in the past (because obviously the person who spoke originally spoke in the past). The verbs therefore usually have to be in the past too.
• Note : the reporting verbs that are usually used to report imperative sentence are :Tell, other command, ask, warn, remind.


Simple present
Past tense
direct : Vita said “ I eat fried rice”
indirect : Vita said that she ate fried rice.

Simple past
Past perfect
direct : Mother said “ I went to market yesterday”
indirect : Mother said (that) she had gone to market the day before.

Simple future
Past future
direct : Dave said “ I will buy an i-pod next week’
indirect : Dave said (that) he would buy an i-pod the week after

Present continuous
Past continuous
direct : Gama said “ I’m playing football”
indirect : Gama said he was playing football

Past continuous
Past perfect continuous
direct : She said “ I was teaching earlier”
indirect : She said she had been teaching earlier

When we want to report what someone said , we don’t usually repeat their exact words , we use our words , we can use reporting words such as tell say as follow by “that clause”.

Example :
My mother said that she got up at 4 o’clock