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"Direct Quote" vs. Indirect Quote

Lesson #4

同學們有沒有發現，我們在說話或寫作的時候常常會直接引用或間接引用他人的話語呢？今天就讓我們來學習該如何正確地使用直接引用和間接引用吧！

Good morning Taiwan, is everyone ready for some grammar? Well good because I'm going to give you some.

Grammar Lesson #4

直接引用 vs. 間接引用

"Direct Quote" vs. Indirect Quote

直接引用是指我們利用一對引號一字不漏地完整引用他人的話語。

"Direct quote" means you say exactly, word for word, what the other person says. You have to use quotation marks "o". 

Creating a direct quote is easy. Just take exactly what a person says and put it in quotations.

We use a direct quote for emphasis or to be exact. For example, if I give you wrong directions, you might use a direct quote as evidence to prove that I gave the wrong directions.

間接引用是指： 1.總結他人話語的大意。2.依照所引用的內容做出適當的文法變化，如以下所示。

Indirect quote means that you sum up the meaning of what the person said. You can also be exact with an indirect quote, but make sure you make the proper grammatical changes.

Changing from direct to indirect

1.  Indirect quotes often use the word that.

2.  Words like "I", "me", "mine", "you", "you're", have to be changed in indirect quotes

3.  The verb tense of an indirect quote must match that of the sentence. 

Here are some example sentences.

1.  My father always told me, "Do the best you can, and that's all you can do."

        My father always told me to do the best that I can, and that's all I can do.

2.  He said, "I want to go see a movie tonight."

        He said that he wanted to go see a movie tonight.

3.  You said, "I will make sure that I take out the garbage tommorow morning"

         You  said that you would make sure to take out the garbage this morning.

4.  He said, "Go away, I don't want to talk to you right now."

        He told me to go away because he didn't want to talk to me at that time.

5.  You said, "Drive past the fire station and turn left at Starbucks."

        You said to drive past the fire station and turn left at Starbucks.

6.  John said, "It was the most amazing movie I've ever seen."

       John said that it was the most amazing movie he'd ever seen.

7.  He always says, "It takes one to know one."

        He always says that it takes one to know one.

This lesson is easy to understand, but also easy to forget when you are speaking or writing. Make sure you practice writing lost of sentences like these so you can move this rule from your passive memory into your active memory.

Hope this helps, bye.