Select the indirect narration of the given sentence.
He said to the hotel receptionist, “Can you tell me the tariff of rooms?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct indirect narration of the given sentence is:
He asked the hotel receptionist if he could tell him the tariff of rooms.
When converting direct speech to indirect speech, we need to make the following changes:
- Remove the quotation marks.
- Change the reporting verb to one that is appropriate for the mood of the sentence in direct speech. In this case, the reporting verb "said" is changed to "asked" because the sentence in direct speech is an interrogative sentence.
- Change the pronouns to match the subject and object of the reporting verb. In this case, the pronoun "you" in the direct speech sentence is changed to "he" in the indirect speech sentence because the subject of the reporting verb is the speaker and the object is the hotel receptionist.
- Change the verb tense to match the tense of the reporting verb. In this case, the verb tense in the direct speech sentence is present tense, so the verb tense in the indirect speech sentence is also present tense.
Therefore, the correct indirect speech sentence is:
He asked the hotel receptionist if he could tell him the tariff of rooms.