Learn English – Mixing tenses in reported speech sentences

backshiftingreported-speechtense

When I use reported/indirect speech when dealing with some sentence that states a general fact or is still true, the present tense can be retained, right? As in:

  1. I told him that I work for HP.

But can I retain other tenses as well, given they represent an ongoing situation?

  1. He asked how long we've been together, and I told him we've been married for two years.

Is use of the present perfect here even correct?

Also, is it possible to use both past and present forms, when only one part of a sentence is still true?

  1. Mr. Brown asked why you were absent, and I told him that was because you are ill.

And

  1. Mike asked me why you didn't come to the party with me, and I explained to him that you had been working hard for the past two weeks, and once you're free, all you want to do now is get some rest.

I feel like I should use present perfect rather than past perfect, but not being sure, I left it that way.

Best Answer

The tenses in all your examples are perfectly fine.

I believe that in the last example you could have switched to present perfect if you wished so it would look something like:

Mike asked why you didn't come to the party with me, but I explained to him that you have been working hard for the past two weeks, and now you're free all you want to do is get some rest.

(I hope I got my present perfect right, I'm not too hot at grammar terms.)

Note that you probably want to say 'but I told him it was because...' or 'but I told him that it was because...'. In the final example you wouldn't normally have 'me' twice in the first part, you'd say 'Mike asked why' or 'Mike asked me why you didn't come to the party, but...'. In casual speech you'd probably get away with it, though.

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