Talking, talking...

Valeriy, who lives in Russia, has sent me an e-mail. He asks whether I can make a podcast about these words – “say”, “tell”, “speak” and “talk”.

Well, that is easy, I thought. So I sat down to write a podcast about when we use “say” and when we use “tell” and so on. And after an hour, I realised that I could not do it. English is too complicated. There are far too many words in English and there are so many different ways of using them. So I thought, I will not try to explain everything. I shall just explain a few things – the most important things. I will write a few rules, and if my listeners learn these rules, they will be right most of the time. Please remember that “say”, “tell” and “speak” are irregular verbs. They go like this – I say, I said, I have said; I tell, I told, I have told; and I speak, I spoke, I have spoken. “Talk” is regular – I talk, I talked, I have talked. Everybody clear? Then let’s begin!

I want you to imagine that you are reading a comic book, about Batman perhaps. In many of the pictures there is a bubble coming from the mouth of one of the characters. It contains the words which the character is saying. We often call this a “speech bubble”.

Here is my RULE NUMBER 1. If you can imagine a speech bubble, with words in it, then you can always use the word “say”; like this :-

• Kevin says, “I am going to the football match on Saturday”.
• Batman says, “I have only five minutes to save the entire planet.”
• Joanna says that she will go to the supermarket tomorrow.
• Kevin says to Joanne, “Is it OK if I go to the football match on Saturday?”

When we want to explain who we say something to, we always use the word “to” – I said to him that I would be late. We NEVER say “I said him that I would be late”.

And here is RULE NUMBER 2. If there is no speech bubble with words in it, then you can use “talk” or “speak”.

• I will speak to my boss tomorrow about whether I can take a day off work.
• Kevin talks to George about the football match.
• Today, our teacher is going to talk about irregular verbs in English.

So you see, “speak” and “talk” can tell us who is speaking or talking; who the speaker is talking to; and what sort of thing the speaker is talking about. But they do not tell us about the exact words which the speaker uses. There is no speech bubble with words in it. Very often, “speak” and “talk” mean exactly the same, and we can use them interchangeably (that is, we can replace one of them with the other). I think that we use “talk” more often than we use “speak”.

And how about the last word which Valerij wants me to explain – the word “tell”? Here comes RULE NUMBER 3. “Tell” means “give information”. And we can use “tell” when there is a speech bubble, and also when there is no speech bubble, provided that we mean “give information”. Nearly always, when we use “tell”, we also say who the speaker is talking to. Like this:-

• Joanne tells her boss, “I have nearly finished the report that you asked for”.
• Kevin tells Joanne that he wants to go to the football match on Saturday.
• David told me about his holiday.
• He told me that he went to Spain, and that he had a great time there.
• John told me how to find his house.
• You asked me a question; now I will tell you the answer.
• I looked at my watch and told him the time.
• At the end of the school day, the teacher told the children a story.

I hope this helps you, Valeriy. Please keep sending me your comments and questions, either by e-mail or by leaving a comment on the web site. I shall do my best to reply to all of them. There is a vocabulary note attached to the podcast today, and also a quiz, so you can test how well you understand the difference between “talk”, “speak”, “say” and “tell”.

Download MP3 (6:33min, 3MB)

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on the 10th of December.

The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. The commemoration was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all states and interested organisations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.

"We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals – worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries – but only if we break with business as usual. We cannot win overnight. Success will require sustained action across the entire decade between now and the deadline. It takes time to train the teachers, nurses and engineers; to build the roads, schools and hospitals; to grow the small and large businesses able to create the jobs and income needed. So we must start now. And we must more than double global development assistance over the next few years. Nothing less will help to achieve the Goals." United Nations Secretary-General

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

For more information about The Human Rights Day: Wikipedia
For more information about the Millenium development goals: UN Millenium Goals

Immigration into Britain

A few years ago, there was an advertisement on a billboard close to where I live. It advertised a company called Western Union. You probably know about Western Union. Western Union sends money from one country to another. If you want to send money to your brother in South Africa, for example, you can go to a Western Union office in England and pay in some money. Then your brother can go to a Western Union office in South Africa, and collect the money which you have sent.

The unusual thing about this advertisement however was the language in which it was written. It was in Polish. It was aimed at Polish people who work in Britain, and who want to send money back to their families in Poland.

And last year, the local paper in Reading, a town close to London, printed one of its editions in Polish, for the benefit of the many Polish people who now live and work in Reading. You can see a photo of the paper on the website and on your iPod screens.

Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, a lot of Polish people have come to this country. We sometimes joke in Britain about how all plumbers nowdays seem to be from Poland. And people have come from other East European countries as well. For example, I do not think that there are any buses still running in Lithuania, because there are so many Lithuanian bus drivers here in Birmingham.

Of course, immigration into Britain is not new. Over the last 50 years, a lot of immigrants have arrived here from for example Pakistan, India and the West Indies. But large scale immigration from Eastern Europe is new – it has been made possible by the European Union rules which say that people must be able to move freely throughout the Union and live and work in any EU member country.

You will find that many people in England do not have a positive view of immigration or of immigrants. They say that they take the jobs of British workers; and that they are a burden on our health, welfare and education systems. Some people say that immigrants are responsible for a lot of crime.

But a government report, published this week, takes a very different view. It says that in 2006, 12.5% of the workforce in this country were immigrants. Immigrants have, on average, higher skills than people in similar jobs who were born in Britain. They earn more as well, and so pay more in taxes. Many employers say that immigrant workers are more reliable, and are willing to work longer hours. Some sectors of the economy like agriculture and hotels and restaurants depend heavily on immigrant labour. The report concludes that, altogether, immigration into Britain contributes £6 billion a year to the British economy.

Of course, there are problems too. In Britain, house prices and rents are very high, and in some places immigration has pushed prices and rents even higher. Some immigrants have to live in poor housing, and are exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Other immigrants are employed by labour agencies or “gangmasters”, and some of these have a bad record for exploiting their workers. And there can be problems too when schools have to cope with a lot of pupils who do not speak English (though my experience is that children learn English very fast – it is adults who find new languages a problem).

The overall picture painted by the report is that immigration has greatly benefited Britain and the British economy. I guess that some of you who listen to my podcasts have come to Britain as immigrants, or you have worked in Britain and have now returned to your own countries. What do you think? Please post a comment on the podcast website saying what you like about living in Britain, and what you do not like.

Download MP3 (5:10min, 2MB)

Learn English though video- Planning a trip

Have you got a tight budget? Anyway, you can go on a tour and plan a cheap trip.
Learn about specific vocabulary about vacations, the use of superlatives, etc. Enjoy your trip!

Learn English through video- Time, time, time

Questions and answers about time.
Can you spare some time to listen to it?
Let's have a try! I hope you'll have a great Time.
See you next time!