AVOID Mistakes in speaking English | Speak, Talk, Say, Tell difference

hi there this is Harry welcome back to Advanced English lessons with Harry where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language and as you know in all of these lessons I always ask you to send me in your contributions or questions or even if you have suggestions what you would like to have included in future lessons well this particular lesson is exactly that hello out there Reuben this is for you you asked me to give you some idea through a lesson about the difference of say tell speak and talk and a few other words like ask that I've thrown in and utter and convey so this lesson is for all of you out there with these difficulties but in particular it's been asked and requested by Reuben okay so and if you do like this particular lesson then please like the video and if you can subscribe to the channel because you know it does it really really helps okay so it's an advanced English lesson and we're looking at different ways of the differences between between to say to tell to speak and talk now there are other verbs as I mentioned to ask convey and utter and I'll mention those as we go through the lesson okay let's get started say say is an irregular verb irregular verb and we say said they're the three parts of the verb say said said say is used with or without a personal object for example Sarah said that she was tired Sarah said that she was tired you can also use it with a personal object followed by the preposition for example Sarah said to me that she was tired so you've got two options to say it with or without the personal object Sarah said that she was tired in that case it's without the personal object or Sarah said to me and as our personal object me Sarah said to me that she was tired so notice how we structure the sentence Sarah said that she was tired or Sarah said to me that she was tired okay it's not Sarah say me okay Sarah said to me or Sarah said that she was tired say can also be used when we want to express an opinion or a thought for example I say that we should give each person 20 tickets so that they can sell them and raise some money for charity that's what I say okay or we could even say oh I say what's that over there that looks very interesting so we use it to raise an opinion or a view or to get people's attention to something oh I say what's that so you can use it in different ways okay then let's look at the verb tell to tell and again we're talking about an irregular verb tell told told so there's your three parts tell told and told okay until is always always followed by a personal object for example she told me she was tired or she told me that she was tired you can either include or exclude that she told me she was tired or she told me that she was tired the important thing is that after told it's followed by that personal object me okay and when we use tell it's often used to describe when we give orders or instructions I told them to go to bed so when you want the children to get to bed early or whenever I told them to go to bed I told them to go to bed after their supper I told you to ring the doctor did you ring him I told you to ring the doctor so we're giving instructions and usually we're using it in not so harsh but very very dictatorial or strongly I told you to ring your doctor why didn't you I told the kids to go to bed why aren't they in bed say and tell can both be used when we're talking about either direct or reported speech for example she said I want to leave so at the party she said I want to leave she said that she wanted to leave she said I hate tea she told me she hates tea okay so we can use it in that direct and reported speech and say and tell are always interchangeable the only thing you have to do you have to change the structure of the sentence uh to make it a little different and to make it grammatically accurate of course for example did she tell you what happened yesterday so a question did she tell you what happened yesterday or did she say what happened yesterday did she tell you what happened yesterday did she say what happened yesterday the meaning is exactly the same the structure is slightly different what did Jack say what did Jack tell you exactly the same there's a different structure when we want to say or use say or tell now let's look at speak speak again is in a regular verb and the three parts are different speak spoke spoken I speak he spoke I have spoken speak spoke spoken and make sure you get that pronunciation speak spoke and spoken speak is used in a little bit more of a formal way and formal situations particularly when you want to emphasize that something is important for example I will speak to you later I will speak to you later I will speak to management and ask them to increase our salaries I will speak to management and ask them to increase our salary so a little bit more formal and it's also used when we're referring to languages for example he can speak three languages he can speak German English and Spanish you can speak three languages or indeed if somebody is talking about making an address to a large Gathering or crowd the senior manager will speak at the end of the conference the senior manager will speak at the beginning of the party just to introduce so welcome everybody to this year's annual get-together okay so we're using it in slightly more formal way talk talk is a regular verb okay so the others we've looked at are irregular so talk is the regular verb and it's talk talked talk he talked now remember when you're using it in that past tense make sure you get the correct pronunciation of that e d ending talked it's got a t sound talked I talk he talked okay so make sure you pronounce that Ed ending correctly the same as walk walked talk talked the sound the ending exactly the same so we use talk when we're in a much more relaxed environment or a relaxed setting among friends or family and usually in a conversational style okay you can use talk like this I was talking to your mom the other day and she said you were enjoying your Early College days yeah I was talking to your mum the other day we talked all night about our favorite movies we talked forever so the boy and girl meeting for the first time or the second time in their relationship it's we talked forever we we could have talked all night yeah I'm so something a little bit more relaxed and a little bit more friendly and informal and again as we said before speak and talk they are interchangeable okay and it depends on the formality of the speech that you're talking to and in in this situation there's no need to change the grammatical structure in the sentence is usually the same for example I would like to speak to your manager I would like to speak to your manager I would like to talk with your parents I'd like to speak to your manager I would like to talk with your parents it's they're not very different okay the structure the sentences is exactly the same but if I said I would like to talk to your manager or I'd like to speak to your parents you know whether I say talk or speak it's not going to change the meaning the intention or what I want to do now we can just use different prepositions do we use with or do we use two so let me give you a couple of examples of that when we speak to someone it's usually in a way like it's one way yeah so if if your boss is really annoyed with you or your parents are really annoyed with you or you're really annoyed with your kids you can use it one way I will speak to you later I'll speak to you later so you're gonna have to sit there and listen to mother or father or you know you're gonna have to listen to the T teacher I'll speak to you later so it's very much one way and if we want to use it in a more conversational style where it's two-way then we can use with yeah I would like to speak with the team and find out what they want to do okay I'll speak with you all a little later and we can listen to whatever suggestions you have so it's it's more involved okay and it's it's more convivial and it's more friendly okay so to speak to somebody might be just one way I'll speak to you later speak with be can be involving a few other people and it's two-way conversation now let's move on to the verb as okay to ask and again pronunciation here as ask ask get that k sound at the end to ask so ask is used usually in indirect and reported speech when talking about questions okay somebody might say why do you want to leave your job why do you want to leave your job Pam asked me why I wanted to leave my job or my manager asked me why I wanted to leave my job can you ride a bicycle question can you ride a bicycle Ben asked Sam if he could ride a bicycle Ben asked Sam if he could ride a bicycle could you do me a favor he asked me to do him a favor he asked me to do him a favor so we're using it there in both indirect and reported speech now you also asked about words utter and convey now they're not necessarily ways of talking otter is is is a a word we use when we're giving a style okay talking and often it's used in the negative context for example sit there and don't utter a word so if the parents are really annoyed with you or they're angry then they just tell you sit on the sofa but don't utter a word don't speak until you are spoken to in other words don't utter a word or he sat in the conference all day without uttering a word yeah without uttering a word so again using it in a slightly negative context it's got nothing to do with he uttered something or something was uttered it's not like ask or talk or speak it's just a method or a way of of talking but as I said it's usually used with a negative context be very very careful because there are other ways to use utter here we're using it as a verb to utter okay but if it's used as an adjective or an adverb it's in a completely different meaning and you just have to be really really careful so remember here we are using it as a verb to utter so he sat there without uttering a sound convey now convey can be quite formal and it's the definition of it is about conveying or giving a message okay please convey my gratitude to your parents for their help please convey my wishes to the management so if you're in a hotel and you want to be very formal and you want to make a complaint so please convey my wishes to the management if somebody has died in the family and somebody is really paying their respect they might use an expression like I would like to convey my condolences or I'd like you to convey my condolences to your family I'm really sad to hear about your loss so it's all about giving or transporting something in this case a message giving a message from one person to another in a more formal way okay so we always convey messages we convey our wishes and we can convey our condolences okay so that's utter and convey okay so hopefully Reuben that's covered those points I hope you understand them as always please practice and if you have any more problems or difficulties come back to me and I'll give you a few more suggestions and a few more ideas okay so as always try to practice and remember practice practice practice because that's the best way to learn and to improve and all as always if you want something else you know as Reuben did write to me and we'll include it in a future video for you okay this is Harry saying goodbye thanks for listening thanks for watching join me again for the next lesson

Channel: Learn English with Harry

Views: 206,951

Keywords: speak tell say talk difference, learn english with harry, speak better english with harry podcast, advanced english lessons, speak english confidently, c1 english lessons, confusing verbs in english

Id: bekk9QOsCj0

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023