 Indirect Speech Saying exactly what someone has said is called direct speech (sometimes called quoted speech). Here what a person says appears within quotation marks ("...") and should be word for word. 

agree, to announce, to answer, to approve, to argue, to ask, to breathe out, to call, to claim, to confess, to confute, to contradict, to counter, to cry out, to declare, to demand, to disagree, to disapprove, to exclaim, to explain, to groan, to grumble, to hint, to implore, to inquire, to interrogate, to mention, to murmur, to mutter, to notice, to order, to plead, to proclaim, to propose, to refuse, to rejoin, to remark, to repeat, to reply, to report, to respond, to retort, to say, to scream, to shout, to state, to suggest, to try to find out, to want to know, to utter, to whisper, to wonder, to yell.

You dance so well.
You've got [have got] lovely hair.
I'll never forget this day.

He said I was pretty.
He said I was so intelligent.
He said I danced so well.
He said I had got lovely hair.
He said he would never forget that day.

been to Boston?

He asked me if/whether I liked ballet.
He asked me if/whether I had ever been to Boston.

reading?
When will we meet again?
Why don't you stay longer?

He asked me where I studied.
He asked me what I was reading.
He asked me when I should meet him again.
He asked me why I didn't stay longer.

telephone number.
He asked me to ring him up the next morning.
He asked me to help him to translate an article from English.

Give me your telephone number, please.
Ring me up tomorrow.
Help me to translate an article from English!

speech, then use a construction with if or whether. If a WH question is asked, then use the WH to introduce the clause.

of the very to say is used. In that case the verb tenses usually remain the same.

If the verb said is used, then the form of the modal, or another modal that has a past meaning is used.