Good question. Here are some examples: I speak English. I am talking to you. I am speaking to you. I am telling you something. I am saying something to you. I will tell you something. I will tell you. I will say something to you. I will say something. There is more to the answer I would imagine, but: Speak is the only one of these used used directly with a language. You could also use say 'I can talk in English', but speak is the more common word, and doesn't require 'in'. Now the tricky part: talking and speaking are things you do to objects (generally people I guess, but whatever floats your boat*) Telling and Saying both involve passing information about something. Bizarrely, with tell it is necessary to say who you inform. With say, it is necessary to say what you are talking about. At least, that's what those examples indicate. I'd never really thought about it. And there's a bunch of idiomatic expressions that are exceptions to this anyway, things like: > I will say to you (kind of old fashioned) > I speak of something > I have heard talk of this And then, tell is used in the context of looking at an object and inferring something: I could tell by the way he walked, that he was in trouble. (Here, tell is a little like see) And also remember that say is used to informally introduce an idea: > Say, where did you buy that delicious cake. Or as an interjection to express astonishment or disbelief > "I have decided that I want to live at the south pole." My friend declared. > "Say what? That's crazy!" I replied, surprised. *Whatever floats your boat is an idiom suggesting you can do whatever makes you happy.

three months to learn for learning the English language!!!

I am french and I have three months to learn for learning the English language!! What advice can you give me?

 

Bonjour! Je viens de l'Australie, et j'habite en France depuis peut-etre 6 semaines. Avant cette date, je n'ai pas appris beaucoup de francais. Encore, il y a beaucoup de apprendre, et ma grammaire est pas bon, mais voici ce que je fait:

J'utilise Duolingo www.duolingo.com tous les jours. Duolingo est tres bonne pour le entrainement général
J'essaie entendre a la musique francaise. En général, j'essaie ecouter tout le français que je peux
J'ecris à les personnes francaises que veut apprendre et ecrire en anglais. Si tu veux, tu peux m'envoyer une message en anglais. Je serai il corriger, et aprés, je vais repondre en francais et donc tu serai me corriger.
Aussi, j'ai trouvé que la chose plus difficile en apprenant le français est entendre et faire de sens à des conversations. On peut utiliser skype avec des personnes comme moi que veux apprendre français mais parler anglais.

 

Written the day 01 (Practice for my midterm of english)

My vacation in the summer

On my vacation I went to Valparaiso, especifically (SPECIFICALLY) to THE beach of Cartagena with my family, FSNS (I remember that) we went first to A place where they sold souvernir and I bouthg/BOUGHT a BLACK cap, the cap's color was black, actually is gray. It's was cold, there WERE are many clouds in the sky, however the landscape was beautiful. Then we went to A restaurant because WE WERE VERY had much hungry AND I to ate a FISH SOUPsoup with fish, this was delicious but my mother had a bad luck IN that in your HER dish had a rock, FSNS IT was a big rock and that was very strange and funny, FSNS my mother was very angry and we called to workes/WORKERS for TO give us a solution, FSNS we leaving LEFT that place inmediately AFTERWARDS. AT The end of the day we hit the beache/BEACH, FSNS the sunset was beautiful. Then we went to our car for we from home.
IT Was a good day of my vacation.

Question:
Where did we go in your vacation?
answer: They went to beath of Cartagena.

What happened when they arrived to restauran?
answer: Gonzalo to ate a soup with fish and her mother left a rock in her soup.

 

FSNS = full stop new sentence

(words) = words that are not necessary but you may want

word = incorrect words

WORD = correction

wrod/WORD = spelling mistake

 

Your doing well, if I could give you advice, I would say to use smaller sentences, rather than lots of commas. Also "AT The end of the day we hit the beache/BEACH, FSNS the sunset was beautiful." would read more pleasantly as "At the end of the day we hit the beach and then watched a beautiful sunset"

Men having women friends

I've gotten into A conversation recently ON whether IT IS A GOOD IDEA IF men WHO needing (maybe want) FEMALE women friends SHOULD to go out when they have A girlfriends is a good idea. In my opinion, I wouldn't say that it IS/WOULD BE will be good if they want to keep their relationship with their girlfriends. It seems that it will create complicationS. Also, people feel attachment as WHEN they keep in touch. So, although it is always fun to be around with a person with opposite sex, I don't agree with the argument that man should keep seeing FEMALE women friends.