Question

Direct/indirect speech -‘I have won the race.‘

Answer 1

Step 1 — Given sentence (Direct speech):
The direct speech is: “I have won the race.”
Here, the reporting verb is implied as “He said.”

Step 2 — Rules of conversion:
When converting from direct to indirect speech:
- The present perfect tense (have won) changes into the past perfect tense (had won) if the reporting verb is in the past.
- Pronouns change according to the subject. Here, “I” (speaker) becomes “he.”

Step 3 — Apply the rules:
“I have won the race” → He said that he had won the race.

Step 4 — Conclude:
Thus, the correct indirect speech is: He said that he had won the race.

Answer: The correct answer is He said that he had won the race.

Answer 2

This can also be solved by placing the reporting verb and the original statement on a simple timeline rather than only quoting the tense-change rule.

1. Mark the timeline: The reporting verb "said" is in the past, which fixes a point in the past as the moment of reporting.
2. Locate the original action: The direct speech "I have won the race" uses the present perfect, meaning the winning was already complete at the moment of speaking.
3. Shift the action further back: Since the reporting itself already happened in the past, an action that was already complete at that past moment must be pushed one step further back on the timeline, into the past perfect.
4. Adjust the pronoun: The speaker "I" becomes "he" when reported by someone else, matching the subject of "said."

Placing both events on a timeline confirms that the completed action must move one step further into the past when reported later, and the pronoun must shift with the reporting subject.

Hence, the correct answer is He said that he had won the race.