 Let's examine this a bit further and pretend that I want to report a friend of mine's speech from January 1st. Directly quoted, Jack said, I have stopped smoking today. Again, that's back on January 1st. Now let's fast forward to February 1st. Incorrectly reported speech would be, Jack said that he has stopped smoking today. Now, this would indicate that he has stopped smoking today, February 1st. But Jack said it back on January 1st. All right, let's see how you did. The sentence should read, Jack said that he had stopped smoking that day. Why are these changes necessary? Because as we said, if we leave it as today, that would indicate that Jack stopped smoking on February 1st. When? It was on January 1st. We can't leave has as has because we have to back shift the tense to indicate that it was said in the past. As well, it's a month later. We don't know if it's still true. Therefore, the present perfect changes to the past perfect, resulting in Jack had said that he had stopped smoking that day. Here now is a list of the additional time changes. We have today going to that day. Now to then. Yesterday to the day before. X days ago to X days before. Last week, last month, last year. Going to the previous week, month or year tomorrow to the next day. And this week, this month, this year, going to that week, month or year. Now, these changes aren't absolute. They can vary so long as the time change does indicate when something was said. So yesterday doesn't need to be the day before it could be the previous day. Now, if we go back to the example we use with Mike and stop smoking, we could also say that Mike said that he had stopped smoking on New Year's Day because we remember the specific date on which it was said. Having gone through these time changes and explaining them to our students, we then have to let them know that it's sometimes OK that we don't make these time changes. And that's only in the instances when reporting the speech as what was originally said does not cause confusion for the listener. So, for instance, if today was said and today hasn't finished, I can go ahead and leave today as today. We can also look at yesterday. If yesterday, when it's in the direct speech, is still yesterday. When it's in the reported speech, again, we don't have to make the change to the day before.