Do you think I am supposed to change the second part of the sentence as well which is " before I came here"?
Is this correct way to say, She asked me where I had been living before I came there.
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Closer to the original: where I was living.– Yosef BaskinCommented Mar 14, 2023 at 15:43
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Your question title implies that you said "She said to me, 'Where were you living before you came here?'", in which case you need to use single quotes (as I just did) to indicate that it's "reported speech within reported speech". If that's not what you've asking about, please edit your question title to move the first double-quote mark to immediately before the first word she said (Where). Otherwise, please edit to include both types of quote marks as indicated.– FumbleFingersCommented Mar 14, 2023 at 15:52
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...I'm not sure why anyone would normally ask Where were you living before? like that. Plain "non-continuous" Where did you live before? is surely more natural.– FumbleFingersCommented Mar 14, 2023 at 15:56
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It depends where 'here' is! If you are talking to someone in the town where you live, you can say 'before I came here'. If you are talking to someone in another place, or it's part of a story that might be read by anyone, you have to use 'there' (since the reader probably isn't in your home town).– Kate BuntingCommented Mar 14, 2023 at 15:58
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She asked me where I had been living before I came there. sounds okay ? or She asked me where I had been living before I had come there.– Rajesh PoudelCommented Mar 14, 2023 at 15:58
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2 Answers
You don’t backshift I came in the before clause:
Direct: She asked me, “Where were you living before you came to England?”
Indirect: She asked me where I had been living before I came to England. (not had come)
You can confirm that by comparing these:
Direct: She asked, “Where did you live when you were a child?”
Indirect: She asked where I had lived when I was a child?” (not had been)
If she said “here” — referring to e.g. England — you have three options, depending on context:
The listener does not know where “here” is: She asked me where I had been living before I came to England.
The listener knows that “here” is England and that you are not in England now: She asked me where I had been living before I came there.
The listener knows that “here” is England and that you are in England now: She asked me where I had been living before I came here.
In careful speech, you'd say She asked me where I'd been living before I came there, but many people would say She asked me where I was living before I came there, as we often do not bother with past perfect when the temporal relationships are clear without it.
You could say She asked me where I'd been living before I'd come there, but that sounds rather stilted and unnatural to me.
answered Mar 14, 2023 at 17:00
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Do you think, in this particular indirect speech, clauses followed by "before", "after" "until" "when" etc remained unchanged? and Is there any way I could modify the sentence giving the same meaning as it was above? Before I came here, she asked me where I had been living. which one makes more sense ? and why? thank you so much sir. Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 19:45
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I don't understand what you're asking. I suspect you're believing that English is like mathematics, and you can work out the equation and get the right answer, and a different expression gets a different answer; but language isn't like that. People say things that could be ambiguous or that when you analyse them seem to have a different meaning. I've given you my opinion (as a native speaker) of the possibilities. Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 22:16