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Say something about “tell, say, talk and speak”

Do these verbs (tell, say, talk and speak)sometimes confuse you? 

They are so similar that it can be difficult to know which one is the right one to use.

Don’t worry! 

You are not alone. 

So I write something to help you understand.

Tell him to meet us here.

Can you say your name again?

We talk on the phone every week.

Speak quietly. This is a library.

Let's  start with ‘say’ and ‘tell’.

say: to express something using words; 

say never has a person as the object. 

You say something or say something to somebody.

Say is often used when you are giving somebody’s exact words.

tell: to give information to a person; 

when you use tell, 

you must have a person following the verb. 

It could be a name or a pronoun. 

But there must be a person following.

He told me to do it.

Where are they going?

She didn’t say.

Where are they going?

She didn’t tell me.

（she didn’t give me the information）

What did he say?

What did he tell you?

Say hi to Paul for me.

Tell Paul I said hi!

I want to say something about our teacher.

I want to tell you something about our teacher.

I said that their new house is beautiful.

I told them that their new house was beautiful.

Speak and talk are synonyms and most of time you can use either one of these verbs interchangeably, 

which means it doesn’t matter. 

You can choose either.

There are a few differences in the way that they are used.

Speak tends to be a bit more formal. 

It also refers to more general topics than “talk”. 

Most importantly, you can only use speak when you’re talking about languages. 

They speak French.

Usually when you use talk you might add it with the preposition “about”, 

talk about something. 

So it’s a little more specific. 

Or you might add it with the preposition “to/with”, 

talk to sb.; talk with sb.

Can I speak with you? 

（formal；more general topics）

Can I talk with you? 

（a little informal）

Can we talk about your brother? 

(more specific)

How many languages do you speak?

Well, that’s it! 

I hope that you enjoyed the lesson!

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