Question

Convert into reported speech:

Your father said to you: You can use my car.

• A. My father said to me that you can use my car.
• B. My father said to me that I can use his car.
• C. My father told me that I can use his car.
• D. My father told me that I could use his car.

Answer 1

The correct option is D My father told me that I could use his car.

The given sentence is a statement.

In the indirect speech 'told' may be used for 'said to'.

According to the rules of narration and reporting, if the reporting verb is in the past tense, the tense of the reported verb is changed into its corresponding past form. The reporting verb in the given sentence, 'said', is in the past form. Therefore, the reported verb, 'can' will change into 'could'. The second person of the direct speech is changed into the person of the speaker.

Thus, in indirect speech, the sentence must be,

My father told me that I could use his car.

Thus option D is the correct answer.

Options A,B,C are incorrect as they do not follow the rules of Narration and Reporting.