English in Use/Quotations

The quotation points distinguish words that are exhibited as those of an other author or speaker. A quotation within a quotation, is usually marked with single points; which, when both are employed, are placed within the others: as,


 * "And again he said, 'Rejoice, you gentiles, with his people.'"&mdash;Rom., xv, 10.

English Quotations
In English quotations and direct speech is donated using quotation marks:


 * " is used as an opening quotation mark,
 * " is also used as a closing quotation mark.

Converting direct speech follows a pattern in English which may differ to reported speech in other languages. This pattern concerns statements (there are different rules for imperatives and questions).

Note that when converting from direct speech to indirect speech you usually have to move the tense backwards:

Similarly there are some changes to be made to other words in the sentence. Because we are reporting what someone said in the past we must use other words to talk about the past, e.g. "today" becomes "that day", "here" becomes "there", "next week" becomes "the following week" and "last week" becomes "the previous week". There are other similar changes too.