🗣️ Grammar B1-23: Reported speech

The reporting material of the Fleydo B1 series, built on one image: reported speech is a camera move. On Saturday Meera texts the team chat “I’m on my way”; on Sunday Maddie tells Callie that Meera said she was on her way — same information, new mouth, new day, and three things shift together to keep the meaning exactly where it was. The form section installs the machinery: a full step-one-back table (present → past, past and present perfect → past perfect, will → would, can → could, must → had to) and a second table for the words that name time and place (today → that day, tomorrow → the next day, yesterday → the day before, here → there, now → then). The three shifts then run in strict order — tense back, pronouns turned, time words re-measured — through three worked examples, including a told-frame where you turns into I. The compare-and-verdict pair is the say / tell choice, trap number one of this grammar: you say something, but you tell somebody something, so said me and told that both wreck. A 116-word tap-and-explain retelling of the weekend chat Callie missed shows twenty reporting choices in three colours: frames, stepped-back verbs, and pronouns or time words that turned. Practice runs to thirty-one explained multiple-choice items in four sets, twelve time and place words sorted into on-the-day and in-the-report columns, six real learner repairs, and three traps — said me, the unshifted will, the frozen tomorrow. One note keeps it honest: a still-true fact may keep its tense, and the stepped-back version is never wrong. Statements only, by design: reported and indirect questions are B1-28, richer reporting verbs B2-9. Teacher notes give a 45-minute sequence, the three-row shift-machine board move, the throw-a-ball rescue for say vs tell, and Cambridge B1 Preliminary relevance.