Japanese is chock full of homophones (words that are pronounced the same, and in a phonetic language like Japanese, thereby are spelled the same (when in kana or Roman characters). I remember having confusions like this before myself earlier at some point(s) in my personal history of Japanese studies.. Especially if you're watching a lot of anime (which I was too back then, I still do, just not all the time anymore lol). Anyway, hanasu, spelled with the kanji 話す, means to speak. But 放す, which is pronounced the same and conjugates by the same exact rules, means "to separate / set loose" etc. So that's also why the anime girls say "hanashite!" when they're saying something like "let go of me!".