WHO CAN HELP?

[hiepnguyenbg]

I have a confusion between words in below groups:
1, say, talk, tell, speak
2, contact, touch
3, when, while
Who can help me?

[e2e4]

A learner

1. to say ~ to use words orally
2. to talk ~ to have a word with someone
3. to tell ~ mostly to give the listener an information
4. to speak ~ to be possible to use a language
5. contact ~ is a kind of a connection between two parts of anything
6. to touch ~ verb, to tie any part of anything to any part of something else
7. when ~ at that time
8. while ~ during some time

Many of these words have more different meanings as well.

[english-nation]

1) There are small differences in these four words that can make it difficult to differentiate them. Here are some guidelines to help:

Speak is used when one person addresses a group.
Talk suggests that two or more people are having a conversation. (Sometimes can be used interchangeably with "speak")
Say is used with words. Structure: say something to somebody.
Tell is used when giving information. Structure: tell somebody something.

2) Contact and touch can be used interchangeably in most cases, but typically, "contact" would be used as a noun and "touch" as a verb.

"The basketball player made contact with the shooter."
"The basketball player touched the shooter."

3) When is used to describe an action that caused a brief interruption or preceded or followed another action. For example:

"Bob stopped cleaning when you called him."

This shows that because of your phone call, Bob had to stop what he was doing and talk to you. While describes an action that occurs at the same time as another. For example:

"Bob was cleaning while he talked to you on the phone."

Bob is doing both actions at once.

Pat

[goreun]

Speak & Talk
1. There is little difference between speak & talk . In certain situations one or the other is preferred,but they both are possible.
2. Talk is used in Informal communication.e.g. Could I talk ......? Speak is used in formal situations.e.g. I'll have to speakk to ......he's not working hard.
3. This is SB, who is going to talk to us about some thing (giving lecture)
4. She speaks three languages fluently.
5 . Could I speak to .... ?
Say & Tell
say is more common then tell with direct speech
1."Turn right,"I said. "Turn right,"I told him. ( notice object after told)
2. Use tell to 'instruct' or 'inform' Therefore avoid tell in greetings,questions & exexclamations
3. Use say without personal object or use 'to'before personal object
4 after tell object is used e.g. She told me
5. I told the children to sing