reported speech
 

Hi all,

I am not a native speaker of English. And I don't know if you, the native, do such a thing in your English lessons. Here in spain we are taught the reported speech. It's what someone said in direct or indirect form:

John said he wasn't ready. (indirect)

John said "I am not ready". (direct)

My question:

How can you turn the following line into direct speech?

Peter said they wouldn't have come if they had known.



That's my problem. I just can't come up with the solution altough I think it must be a pretty obvious one.

Thanks!

Well, in this case Peter could have conveyed that point using those exact words, so in a direct form:

Peter said "they wouldn't have come if they had known."

In this case, it depends on the use of the word they.

If I am talking to someone and repeat what Peter said and he was talking about himself and whoever came with him, then direct speech would be: Peter said, "We wouldn't have come if we had known".

However if peter was talking about someone else, then the they would be correct.