[Grammar] Reported Question

[Mr.Flores]

Hello Everyone.

This is my first post, i am an English Teacher in Mexico, so, apologize if i am not the best, i am also learning.

i am teaching the topic Reported Question and got confused with some sentences. In my teacher's book there are some examples from direct question to report question.

"How did it go?" - He asked me how it went. (This basically is clear, the auxiliar do is removed and the verb change to the past tense)

"What did you say?" - He asked me what i HAD said. (I dont understand why on this reported question we need to add had, i understand that 'had said' is on past perfect, is it wrong to say 'He asked me what i said'?)

Then in other examples:

"How did you feel?" - He asked me how i felt. (Why it doesnt use the past perfect? Is it wrong to say 'He asked me how i had felt'?)

what i want to know it is gramatically when i am going to use the past perfect and when the simple past to make the reported question.

i would like to add that i know that in the Topic Reported Speech, there is a grammar table that you change the tenses from Simple Past to Past Perfect... Simple Present to Past Tense.. and so on... but i havent seen the same grammar table for Reported Speech, and if it is the same...

why the book use both ways? I dont want to sound like those teachers saying to their ss that the book is wrong... but it could be..

 

[emsr2d2]

Hello everyone.

This is my first post. I am an English teacher in Mexico (no comma here) [STRIKE]so,[/STRIKE] and I apologize if I am not the best; I am also learning.

I am teaching the topic "Reported Questions" and [STRIKE]got[/STRIKE] I am confused [STRIKE]with[/STRIKE] about some sentences. In my teacher's book there are some examples [STRIKE]from[/STRIKE] of "direct question to reported question".

"How did it go?" - He asked me how it went. (This basically is clear, the auxiliary "do" is removed and the verb changes to the past tense.)

"What did you say?" - He asked me what I HAD said. (I don't understand why on this reported question we need to add "had". I understand that 'had said' is [STRIKE]on[/STRIKE] the past perfect. Is it wrong to say 'He asked me what I said'?)

Then in other examples:

"How did you feel?" - He asked me how I felt. (Why [STRIKE]it[/STRIKE] doesn't it use the past perfect? Is it wrong to say 'He asked me how I had felt'?)

What I want to know [strike]it[/strike] is, grammatically, when I [STRIKE]am going to[/STRIKE] should use the past perfect and when the simple past to make [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] a reported question.

I would like to add that I know that in the topic "Reported Speech", there is a grammar table which shows that you change the [STRIKE]tenses[/STRIKE] tense from simple past to past perfect, simple present to past tense, and so on, but I haven't seen the same grammar table for Reported [STRIKE]Speech[/STRIKE] Questions. [STRIKE]and[/STRIKE] If it is the same, why does the book use both ways? I don't want to sound like those teachers [STRIKE]saying to[/STRIKE] who tell their [STRIKE]ss[/STRIKE] students that the book is wrong (no ellipsis here) but it could be.

Note my corrections above. You said you are an English teacher - it's important that you do your very best to make sure everything you write is correct. It is understandable that you might still make grammatical errors but I'm sure you know that you must capitalise the word "I" every time you write/type it, and the first letter of every sentence.

"He asked me what I said" is grammatically correct. The choice of tense, as always, depends on the surrounding context. By the same token, depending on the context, "He asked me how I had felt" could be used.

 

[Tdol]

We often do not follow the mechanical rules of backshifting tenses, so it is not uncommon to see the past tense in examples like this, though the past perfect works.