Go beyond "say" and "tell": report the meaning of what people do with their words.
At B1 you reported speech mostly with say and tell: "She said (that) she was tired." That works, but it is flat. At B2, good speakers report the function of an utterance — whether someone advised, warned, admitted, refused or threatened. One precise verb replaces a whole clause and shows exactly what the speaker was doing.
The challenge is that each of these verbs demands its own grammatical pattern. Some take an object + a to-infinitive; some take the -ing form; some take a preposition; some take a that-clause. Choose the wrong pattern and the sentence collapses. This unit sorts the most useful reporting verbs into clear families so that the pattern comes to you automatically.
Every reporting verb belongs to a pattern family. Learn the family, and you can report dozens of situations without hesitating.
| Pattern | Reporting verbs | Example |
|---|---|---|
| verb + sb + to-inf | advise, warn, remind, encourage, tell, ask | She advised me to rest. |
| verb + to-inf | offer, promise, refuse, agree, threaten | He promised to call. |
| verb + -ing | admit, deny, suggest, recommend | They denied cheating. |
| verb + prep + -ing | apologise for, insist on | I apologised for being late. |
| verb + that-clause | admit, insist, suggest, promise, recommend | He insisted that she stay. |
Use this family when someone directs, guides or warns another person. There is always an object (the person spoken to) before to.
| Verb | Original words | Reported |
|---|---|---|
| advise | "You should see a doctor." | She advised him to see a doctor. |
| warn | "Don't touch the wire!" | He warned us not to touch the wire. |
| remind | "Remember to lock the door." | She reminded me to lock the door. |
| encourage | "Go on, apply for it!" | They encouraged her to apply. |
These verbs report what the speaker promises, offers, refuses or threatens to do. There is no object before to — the subject and the doer are the same person.
This family reports confessions, denials and suggestions. The verb is followed directly by the -ing form — never by a to-infinitive.
| Verb | Original words | Reported |
|---|---|---|
| admit | "Yes, I took it." | He admitted taking it. |
| deny | "I didn't do it." | She denied doing it. |
| suggest | "Let's wait a week." | He suggested waiting a week. |
| recommend | "You should book early." | She recommended booking early. |
Two more verbs need a preposition before the -ing form:
Several verbs can also report with a that-clause. This is useful for a full statement or a formal demand. After suggest, recommend and insist, the verb in the clause often stays in the base form (the "subjunctive"), with an optional should.
| Verb | Example (that-clause) |
|---|---|
| insist | The manager insisted that everyone (should) wear a badge. |
| suggest | She suggested that we (should) postpone the launch. |
| recommend | He recommended that the report (should) be rewritten. |
| admit | She admitted that she had made a mistake. |
These are the errors B2 students still make with reporting verbs. Check your own writing against every row.
| Wrong ✗ | Right ✓ | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| She suggested me to leave early. | She suggested (that) I leave early. / suggested leaving early. | suggest never takes object + to-infinitive. |
| He denied to take the money. | He denied taking the money. | deny is followed by -ing, not to. |
| They advised me leaving. | They advised me to leave. | advise + somebody + to-infinitive. |
| I apologised to be late. | I apologised for being late. | apologise for + -ing. |
| He warned me to not touch it. | He warned me not to touch it. | 'not' comes before 'to'. |
Two colleagues talk about a meeting with the boss. Read it twice and watch how one precise reporting verb replaces a whole reported sentence: admitted, apologised for, promised, advised, encouraged, recommended.
Choose the correct answer. — 10 questions, each one is marked instantly. Questions get harder as you go.
Learn the reporting verbs, then use them to retell a real conversation of your own.
Retell a real (or imagined) conversation in 8 sentences — a disagreement, a piece of advice, or a negotiation. Use at least 8 of the words above.
Sentence starters (you can begin with these):
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will review your task.)
Read the text, then answer the questions.
Good readers prepare before they start. Before you read, think about these three questions (you do not need to write the answers):
Words to spot (from the Speaking section): negotiate · apologise · admit · deny · insist · warn · encourage · remind · refuse · recommend
When a small design studio nearly lost its biggest client, everything came down to a single tense meeting — and to what each person was willing to say.
The studio, called Northlight, was well known for its clean, modern furniture designs, and the furniture company had been one of its very first customers. Over the years the two teams had grown comfortable with each other, perhaps a little too comfortable. When a new product line was announced, almost everyone assumed that the schedule would somehow look after itself. Nobody imagined that a handful of missed emails and one badly overloaded calendar could push a friendly, long-standing partnership to the edge of collapse in a matter of weeks.
The trouble had started quietly. Deniz had taken on three large projects at once, convinced that her small team could handle the pressure without any extra help. For several weeks she reassured everyone that the work was firmly on track, yet the progress reports she sent grew shorter and vaguer with each passing Friday. By the time the furniture company asked for a proper update, two of the key drawings were still unfinished. The client began to suspect that something had gone seriously wrong long before anyone in the studio was willing to admit it out loud.
The client, a furniture company, insisted that the studio had missed two important deadlines. The project manager, Deniz, did not argue. Instead, she admitted making a serious mistake with the schedule and apologised for the delays. She promised to deliver the remaining work within ten days.
The meeting itself took place on a grey Tuesday morning in a narrow conference room that smelled faintly of coffee and fresh paint. Six people sat around the table, and for the first few minutes nobody seemed willing to speak first. Deniz had carefully prepared a long list of technical reasons for the delays, but as she looked at the tired, doubtful faces opposite her, she decided at the last moment to put the list away. She explained afterwards that a pile of excuses would only have made the silence in the room feel even heavier.
At first, the client refused to continue. Their representative even threatened to cancel the whole contract and warned Deniz not to make any more excuses. The atmosphere in the room was cold.
For a moment it seemed that the partnership was already over. The representative, a careful man named Mr Aydın, said that his managers had been asking difficult questions for weeks. He complained that every promise from the studio had quietly slipped, and he insisted that his company could not keep waiting for work that never seemed to arrive. Two of his colleagues nodded firmly in agreement, and one of them even began gathering her papers together, as though the meeting had already reached its end.
However, Deniz stayed calm. She reminded the client that the studio had produced excellent work for three years, and she encouraged them to look at the bigger picture. Then she offered to reduce the final invoice as a gesture of good faith.
She did not raise her voice or beg them to stay. Instead, she opened a simple folder and showed them photographs of the earlier projects the two companies had completed together — a bright showroom in the city centre, a series of award-winning chairs, and a catalogue that had helped the furniture company win new customers of its own. She admitted honestly that the recent months had been badly managed, but she asked them to weigh one difficult period against three genuinely successful years. Reducing the invoice, she explained, was not a clever trick to buy back their loyalty; it was simply a fair way to share the cost of her own mistake.
Her honesty changed the mood completely. One of the client's directors, who had said almost nothing, finally spoke. He advised his colleagues to give the studio a second chance, and he suggested extending the deadline rather than ending the partnership.
The director, an older man who had helped to found part of the company decades earlier, spoke slowly and chose every word with care. He reminded the room that even the strongest business relationships pass through hard moments, and he warned his younger colleagues against throwing away a trusted partner over a single disappointing quarter. He then proposed a practical compromise: the studio would deliver the outstanding work within the agreed ten days, and the two companies would meet once a month from then on, so that small problems could never quietly grow into large ones again. To everyone's obvious relief, Mr Aydın agreed to consider it seriously.
By the end of the meeting the mood in the narrow room had changed entirely. Cups of cold coffee were pushed aside, chairs were pulled a little closer, and people who had arrived as opponents slowly began to talk like colleagues once more. Deniz noted down every point that had been raised and repeated the new deadline aloud, so that there could be no misunderstanding later. She thanked the client sincerely for their patience and confirmed, in writing that same afternoon, exactly what her team would deliver and precisely when.
In the end, the client agreed to stay. Afterwards, Deniz denied being a hero. 'I simply told the truth,' she said. 'When something goes wrong, people don't want excuses; they want a plan.' Her team later recommended writing her approach into the studio handbook. Since that day, everyone there remembers one quiet rule: admit the problem, then promise the solution.
News of the meeting spread quickly around the studio. Deniz's colleagues had expected her to return either furious or completely defeated, so they were genuinely surprised when she walked in looking thoughtful rather than shaken. She gathered the whole team together, described honestly how close they had come to losing the account, and thanked the designers who had offered to work extra hours to rescue the schedule. Nobody was blamed in public. Instead, she encouraged everyone to speak up the very moment a deadline started to feel impossible, rather than hiding the problem until it finally exploded.
In the weeks that followed, the studio quietly changed the way it worked. A large whiteboard appeared near the entrance, and each project was marked with a colour that clearly showed whether it was safe, slipping, or genuinely in danger. Deniz began sending short, honest updates every Friday, even when the news was uncomfortable to write. The furniture company, for its part, stopped assuming that silence meant steady progress and started asking gentle questions much earlier. Both sides later agreed that the crisis, painful as it had been at the time, had taught them to communicate far better than before.
Choose the correct answer.
Are these sentences true or false, according to the text?
Complete each sentence with ONE word from the text. Mind the reporting-verb pattern (for / to / not / -ing).
Write your answer in your own words. These questions are not marked automatically.
1. How did Deniz react when the client accused the studio of missing deadlines?
2. What did the client's representative do at the start of the meeting?
3. What lesson does the studio take from this meeting? Do you agree with it?
Find these connectors in the text — each one appears at least once: however, instead, then, rather than, at first, in the end, since, even. (You will use similar linkers in the Writing section.) Note them down, then check.
Patricia and John discuss how artificial intelligence and robotics could change society.
You will hear a conversation: Patricia and John talk about artificial intelligence and robotics — in art, in medicine, and in everyday life. You will listen TWICE. First listen: answer questions 1-5. Second listen: answer questions 6-10. (Kaydı İKİ kez dinleyeceksin: ilk dinlemede 1-5, ikinci dinlemede 6-10.)
Write and submit your paragraph; your teacher will review it.
When you report a conversation, you also need connectors to show sequence and contrast. Four of them are essential this unit — and two familiar ones, although and however, become sharper tools.
| Connector | Use it to... | Example |
|---|---|---|
| moreover | add a stronger, extra point | He apologised. Moreover, he promised to pay for the damage. |
| therefore | show a logical result | She had missed the deadline; therefore, she offered to work late. |
| whereas | contrast two people or ideas | I wanted to wait, whereas he insisted on leaving. |
| nevertheless | say "in spite of that" | They warned me. Nevertheless, I refused to change my mind. |
| although | concede a point inside one sentence | Although he denied lying, nobody believed him. |
| however | contrast between two sentences | She refused at first. However, we finally persuaded her. |
See the difference — the same facts, written two ways:
| Basic linking ✗ | Confident B2 writing ✓ |
|---|---|
| My boss was angry. I said sorry. I said I would fix it. He said okay. He told me to be careful. | My boss confronted me about the error. Therefore, I apologised for the mistake and promised to fix it. Although he was still annoyed, he encouraged me to move on; however, he warned me not to let it happen again. |
A "reported conversation" paragraph has three parts. The skeleton stays the same — you change the content, not the structure:
| Part | What to write | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Opening | Set the scene: who spoke to whom, and why | Last month my manager called me in to discuss a serious mistake. |
| 2. Body | Report what each person said, using a range of reporting verbs (admit, apologise for, promise, warn... not to, advise... to). Link with B2 connectors. | I admitted making the error and apologised for it. Nevertheless, she warned me not to repeat it. |
| 3. Closing | Say how it ended and what you learned | In the end, we agreed to review my work together each week. |
Report a conversation that mattered — a piece of advice, a disagreement or a negotiation from your studies, work or personal life. Retell what was said using a range of reporting verbs.
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will evaluate your writing.)
Mixed questions from the whole unit, then check what you can do.
14 questions: grammar + vocabulary + reading + listening. Each question is marked instantly.
Tick what you can do now. Honest answers help your teacher.
İşaretlemediğin madde varsa ilgili bölüme dönüp tekrar çalış — soldaki menüden her bölüme geri dönebilirsin.
Oturum kontrol ediliyor...