Question

I told him that he was not working hard.

• A. I said to him, "You are not working hard."
• B. I told to him, "You are not working hard."
• C. I said, "You are not working hard."
• D. I said to him, "He is not working hard."

Hint:

When converting from reported speech to direct speech, ensure that the tenses are consistent with the original meaning and context.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

The indirect sentence "I told him that he was not working hard" already refers to the person as "he" throughout.
Carrying that same third-person reference into the direct quote, with "told" adjusted to "said to" and the tense shifted from "was working" to "is working," gives "I said to him, 'He is not working hard.'"
The other options either change the reference to "you," drop "him" from the sentence, or use the non-standard phrase "told to him."
Therefore, the correct answer is I said to him, "He is not working hard."

Answer 2

Another way to check this conversion is to look strictly at which reporting verb pattern and pronoun each option uses, rather than the tense alone.

1. I said to him, "You are not working hard.": While "said to him" is an acceptable reporting pattern, switching the pronoun to "you" departs from the third-person wording of the original indirect sentence.
2. I told to him, "You are not working hard.": The phrase "told to him" combines two reporting patterns incorrectly ("told him" or "said to him" are correct individually), so this fails on the reporting-verb pattern.
3. I said, "You are not working hard.": This uses a valid reporting pattern ("said" without "to him") but removes the listener reference altogether, leaving the sentence incomplete relative to the original.
4. I said to him, "He is not working hard.": This uses the correct "said to him" pattern and keeps the pronoun "he," which matches how the subject was referred to throughout the original sentence.

Matching both the reporting pattern and the original pronoun points to the same option.

Therefore, the correct answer is I said to him, "He is not working hard."