Steve: Hi Jill.
Jill: Hello Steve. How are you?
Steve: Oh, I'm good, thank you. You know, the last time we spoke it was raining and we thought our summer was over.
Jill: And, we sure were surprised.
Steve: We have a glorious, glorious day. I heard that it was going to be 27 degrees today.
Jill: I'm not surprised. I was actually sitting out on the deck eating lunch and I'm wearing dark clothes, dark clothing, and I came in halfway through because I was too hot. Steve: Really?
Jill: So, yeah, it's beautiful. It's been beautiful for the past six days and it's supposed to continue for the next few days and it's great! Steve: That's excellent. Alright, now you have, I think someone sent us, ah, you know, we would like our learners, Linguist learners, to send us lists of words that they have trouble with and Ruthie, who did. And, so, you have some words there.
Jill: Yeah. So, she actually, she actually sent me an e-mail and I did post these on our forum, Open Forum on English and, also, Tracy actually answered them. I was away and so I posted Ruthie's questions and Tracy's answer on Open Forum on English, but then I thought we would just talk about them Steve: Sure. Jill: a little bit, too, because I think they are very Steve: Yup. Jill: common problems.
Steve: Yup.
Jill: So, the first, um, is the difference between talk and speak. When to use talk, when to use speak. And, I think that in most instances, you can use either. You know, for example, I will talk to you later; I will speak with you later or it was nice talking to you; it was nice speaking to you or speaking with you. I think that the thing I have noticed with some learners is that people will say I, I talk English very badly or so, if you're speaking about a language, you have to say I speak English, not I talk English. Steve: Right.
You know, it might be easy, it might be helpful to remember that speak has an "e" in it. And, most of our learners are trying to speak English. So, speak English. We don't necessarily talk English. We speak English.
Jill: And, like I was explaining to Ruthie, actually on a one-on-one, that you can say I talk quickly or I talk loudly. You have an adverb after it and that's okay to say, but you can't actually say I talk Spanish; I talk French; I talk English; it must be speak. Steve: Right.
And, in other languages, of course, you know, there may only be one word for both talk and speak.
Jill: Right.
Steve: Ah, talk, I guess, ah, you know, just as by way of background, because English, ah, has been influenced by so many languages. Ah, because I speak both Swedish and German, I can tell you that the talk comes from the Scandinavian origin word to speak, which is (INAUDIBLE 3:00) and whereas speak is closer to the German word, which is Sprechen. So, I think, very often in English you'll have two or three words that mean the same thing because they have been imported from different languages. Ah, so, but I think the important thing with both speak and talk is that you speak to someone and talk to someone or speak about something Jill: About something. Steve: and talk about something. So, I think it's important that people save the word talk and the word speak and they'll see which prepositions are used. You can't talk the subject you have to talk about the subject. Jill: Yes. Good point.
Steve: Okay.
Another quick point is that, ah, that you can give a talk, but you can't give a speak. So, talk is also a noun, but speak is not.
Jill: Right.
You have to say I gave a speech; speech or a talk. And, anything else about that?
Steve: Nope.
Jill: Okay, so moving along, um Ruthie was wondering about begin and start. I think there it's pretty straightforward. You can pretty much use either; to begin or to start a job; to begin or start a project. I, I began the race; I started the race. I don't know if there are instances where you Steve: We, we spent some time on start the other day and, again, I don't think there's a problem there except that, you know, some of these structures like, to begin to speak or to begin speaking; to start to eat or to start eating, so that either you use the ing form, you know, the follow-up verb, you know, without a to or you use the infinitive and you say so, I start I started to wonder, you know, or I started wondering. Jill: Yes, you're right because so many people say I started to wondering. Steve: Right.
Jill: So, you're right, if you're going to use the infinitive you, you cannot if you're going to use the to you have to use the infinitive not the ing form. Steve: Right.
And, here again, what I would recommend, again, instead of trying to remember that one is a gerund and the other is in infinitive, again, if people have trouble, save the word begin, save the word start and they'll see how those words work. Jill: Right.
And save them with phrases, too, with the to and the ing.
Steve: Absolutely.
Jill: So then, two other words Ruthie had problems with were say and tell. So, um, basically, here Steve: To me, the word tell has some direction in it, you know. Jill: He told me what to do.
Steve: Right.
You don't, you can talk to yourself; you can speak to yourself. I guess you could tell yourself, but tell implies, say is just you said something, you know, whereas with tell the implication is I'm telling you something. So, there's meaning; there's direction there. Jill: Or there's like, Tracy's examples here are he said I'm 30 years old. Or, he told me that he was 30 years old or I said that I was very tired; I told you that I was very tired.
Steve: Right.
I think Jill: So, those are just examples. Steve: You know, we can provide the sort of explanations, but I really think, you know, in the Linguist we want our learners to be as independent as possible, so we want them to try to see the examples and see if they can get a feel for how these words are used. So, again, to save them is a good idea. But, we talk about a saying, you know, we have sayings; we have proverbs; we have sayings. We don't have tellings. Jill: Right.
Steve: But, we tell a story, Jill: We don't say a story. Steve: we don't say a story. So, if we can get used to, like, I told you so, is an expression. I said so, is an expression. I can't say I said you so. Jill: Or I told so.
Steve: I told so. And the other thing you have to watch for is while we speak to him, we tell him; we tell him. We don't say we tell to him. Jill: Right.
Steve: But, we say, we say to him so, and I can provide all kinds of, you know, complicated explanations, but I really think that people can save these, get used to them, and once they're used to them, then they can, they can basically move them to "known" on their list. But, these are tricky little words; very tricky little words and I think there's no other way than to see them in different situations and notice them when you are reading. It's not, you don't have to that every time, but be observant. When you hear; when you see and if you're, very often some of the best times to, to focus and to listen and to pay attention is when you are talking to someone. And, notice how the native speakers use the word and if it's a word that you've been trying to learn and then you hear someone say it in a real, meaningful conversation, you might just, that might just be the, the thing that makes you really understand. Jill: Yeah, yeah, exactly so reading it and, and listening over and over is helpful, obviously.
Steve: Okay.
Well, I think we've covered a fair amount there, so, we will go out and enjoy the sun. Jill: Great. See you next time.
Steve: Okay.
End.
