speak, talk, tell and say

1. The words ‘speak’ and ‘talk’ are generally interchangeable. In other words, you can use either. For example:

• ‘I’m going to speak to my friend.’
• ‘I’m going to talk to my friend.’

1. There are two slight differences between ‘speak’ and ‘talk’.

Firstly, ‘speak’ is more formal than ‘talk’. For example:

• ‘I shall speak to my colleagues about the problem.’

Secondly, ‘talk’ is most often used to describe a long (or longer) conversation. For example:

• ‘I talked to my friend last night.’

1. You must use ‘speak’ when you talk about languages. For example:

• ‘I speak English.’ ‘I speak Japanese,’

1. ‘Tell’ is used to give information about a subject: For example:

• ‘Tell me about the film you saw.’
• ‘I’ll tell you about my last holiday.’
• ‘I told Henry to check his internet connection.’

(Note that when you use ‘tell’, the object’ – ‘me’ and ‘you’ in the above examples - comes immediately after the verb.)

1. When using ‘say’ we do not use an object (me/ them / you etc.) immediately after the word. We use ‘say’ when we want to quote someone or to give instructions. For example:

• ‘John said he would go to the supermarket after class.’
• ‘I won’t say this again. Will you please tidy up your bedroom!’

You can also use ‘say’ to give an opinion. For example:

• ‘I say we go swimming this afternoon.’