Select the correct indirect form of the given sentence.
Ishita said, “I bought these earphones last week, but they stopped working last night.”
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Ishita said that she had bought those earphones the previous week, but they had stopped working the previous night.
Changing a statement with time words into indirect speech:
| Change | Direct | Indirect | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joining word | “ ” (quotation marks) | that | The spoken words are a statement, so they are joined with “that”. |
| Tense change | bought, stopped | had bought, had stopped | “Bought” and “stopped” are in the simple past. The simple past is formed with the past form of the verb (V2). After the past “said” they become the past perfect. The past perfect is formed with had + past participle (V3). |
| Pronoun change | I | she | The speaker is Ishita, so “I” becomes “she”. |
| Time and place words | these, last week, last night | those, the previous week, the previous night | The words are reported later. So “these” becomes “those”, “last week” becomes “the previous week” and “last night” becomes “the previous night”. |
| Full sentence | Ishita said, “I bought these earphones last week, but they stopped working last night.” | Ishita said that she had bought those earphones the previous week, but they had stopped working the previous night. |
Other time words change in the same way. “Ago” becomes “before” and “next week” becomes “the following week”. Example: Sohan said, “We shifted to Nagpur two years ago.” → Sohan said that they had shifted to Nagpur two years before.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Ishita said that she had bought these earphones the previous week, but they had stopped working the previous night. — Incorrect. “These” is not changed. In the report it becomes “those”.
Option 2: Ishita said that she had bought those earphones last week, but they had stopped working the previous night. — Incorrect. “Last week” is left unchanged. In the report it becomes “the previous week”.
Option 3: Ishita told that she had bought those earphones the previous week, but they had stopped working the previous night. — Incorrect. “Told” needs the person spoken to after it, as in “told me”. With no person named, the verb is “said”.