Reported requests, orders, or advice

REQUESTS

There are different ways to make a request, e.g:

  • Sarah: ‘Please wait a minute, Tom.’
  • Sarah: ‘Will you wait a minute, please?’
  • Sarah: ‘Tom, could you wait a minute, please?’

We can report all of these requests in the same way, using asked:

  • Sarah asked Tom to wait a minute.

We do not usually use please in a reported question.


ORDERS

There are different ways to give an order:

  • ‘Stand up, John.’
  • ‘You must work harder.’

You can report orders like this, using told:

  • He told John to stand up.
  • He told me to work harder.

ADVICE

We can give advice like this:

  • ‘You should get married, Peter.’
  • ‘You ought to stop smoking, Jane.’

We can report advice like this, using advised:

  • He advised Peter to get married.
  • He advised Jane to stop smoking.

In reported speech, we use ask, tell, and advise like this:

  VERB + OBJECT + to + INFINITIVE
Sarah asked Tom to wait.
She told him to stand.
He advised Jane to stop smoking

Here is a list of common verbs that we use in this structure:

advise ask tell order
persuade remind forbid warn

Examples:

  • I’ll remind them to come early.
  • I advised them to go to the police.

We cannot use say in this structure:

  • She said (that) he should wait. (NOT She said him to wait.)

To report a negative request, order, etc. (e.g. ‘Don’t laugh.’), we use not + to + infinitive:

VERB + OBJECT + not + to + INFINITIVE
Sarah told Tom not to laugh.
They warned Ian not to borrow money.
I reminded John not to be late.

PRACTICE

Now it is time to practise what you have learned.

  • For each Practice Test, read the instructions carefully.
  • Complete the exercise and press 'Check' to get your results.
Practice Test A

Practice Test B

Practice Test C

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Nigel Bailey

Nigel is a qualified Teacher of English as a Foreign Language and has been teaching in Poland since 2003. He has been teaching over the Internet since 2008 and has taught more than 1,000 students in this way.

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