Reported speech

Direct speech and reported speech are the two ways we can say what someone has said.

Directed speech: "I am your neighbour," said James.

Reported speech: James said that he was my neighbour.

Both these tenses can be used to talk about actions that happened in the past but which tense we use depends on the situation.

Many prepositions we use are single words like in, on and at. These are called simple prepositions.

There are also prepositions which are made up of two or three words. These complex prepositions act in the same way as single-word prepositions.

How many of these two-word prepositions are you familiar with?

Let me know if you have any questions about the meanings of any of these sentences.

Link:Quiz on prepositions

Today's task is a reminder to use online English news sites like the BBC to improve your reading and vocabulary skills.

The following news item is taken from BBC News. You can read the whole story on their webiste: British Airways lines up 1,000 volunteer crew

Snakes are dangerous if they bite.

They is a pronoun. Snakes is an antecedent. The antecedent is the word that the pronoun is about.

A pronoun must always agree with its antecedent:

An airline passenger _A_ a scratch-off lottery ticket aboard a Ryanair plane. After scratching off the ticket he _B_ that he had winning numbers. The ticket he scratched off was said to be _C_ about €10,000.