reported speech

[thomas615]

Hello, Teacher, are both sentences correct?

(1) I spoke with Mr. Lin today to enquire when he could meet with the Manager. He said the only date he is available next week is April 26th.

(2) I spoke with Mr. Lin today to enquire when he could come meet with the Manager. He said the only date he was available next week was April 26th.

[5jj]

Both are possible.

[amigos4]

I prefer #1:
(1) I spoke with Mr. Lin today to enquire when he could meet with the Manager. He said the only date he is available next week is April 26th.

[emsr2d2]

I would be more likely to use "is" here simply because we haven't reached April 26th yet. If, however, I were talking about a conversation which happened in the past and the date that the manager had specified is now also in the past, I would probably use "was".

I spoke to the manager. He said (or "says" in BrE) the only date he is available next week is April 26th,
I spoke to the manager. He said the only date he was available the next/following week was April 12th.