A short opening excerpt. Explore the full lesson in General English Essentials.
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Audio-derived transcript; editorial review pending
00:00 Imagine a journalist interviewing a company spokesperson after a controversial product launch.
00:06 The spokesperson says,
00:08 We made some mistakes, but we didn't deliberately mislead our customers.
00:13 The journalist could report this by saying,
00:16 The spokesperson admitted making mistakes but denied deliberately misleading customers.
00:22 Notice something important.
00:24 We haven't simply changed the verb tenses.
00:26 We've used two reporting verbs.
00:28 Admit and deny to communicate the speaker's meaning more precisely.
00:34 At B2, reported speech becomes less about mechanical transformations
00:39 and more about expressing attitudes, intentions, and responsibility.
Narrated example
We made some mistakes, but we didn't deliberately mislead our customers.
The spokesperson admitted making mistakes but denied deliberately misleading customers.
Reporting verbs convey meaning and attitude.