SAY vs TELL Difference and Meaning with Example English Sentences

Hi, everyone. I’m Esther.

In this video, I’m going to talk about the two similar and sometimes confusing English verbs

‘say’ and ‘tell’.

‘say’ and ‘tell’ have similar meanings

but they are used in different ways.

A lot of my students confuse these words,

so I hope to clear up any confusion.

Keep watching to know the difference between these two words.

Let’s start with ‘say’.

It is an irregular verb so the past tense form is ‘said’.

It means to speak, express something in words or to tell someone something.

Let’s look at some example sentences.

The first sentence says,

‘I’m sorry what did you say?’

Maybe I couldn't hear you but I want to know the words that you spoke

so I say, ‘What did you say?’

The next sentence says,

‘My mom said ‘hi’.’

I’m reporting the words that she spoke.

‘She said ‘hi’.’

Now, I will talk about ‘tell’.

It is also an irregular verb.

The past tense is ‘told’.

It means to say something to someone

especially when giving information or instructions.

Let’s look at some examples.

The first sentence says,

‘He told his mom that he was tired.’

He shared this information with his mom.

So we can use ‘told’.

‘He told his mom that he was tired.’

The next sentence says,

‘Tara told john that she loved him.’

Again, Tara told or gave information to John

that she loved him.

Now, let's do a checkup.

In this conversation, there are two sentences.

In one of the sentences, we use the verb ‘say’

and the other one we use ‘tell’.

Take a moment to think about where we should use ‘say’ and ‘tell’.

‘A’ says,

‘Did you _blank_ that you liked her?’

Remember, for ‘say’,

something comes after.

We ‘say’ something.

In this case, the something is that you liked her.

So ‘A’ should be

‘Did you say that you liked her?’

‘B’ says, ‘No I _blank_ her that I loved her.’

For the verb ‘tell’

someone comes after.

We tell someone.

In this case, ‘her’ comes after the blank,

so the answer is ‘tell’.

However, we need to use the past tense,

so ‘B’ says,

‘No, I told her that I loved her.’

So let's look at the conversation again.

A: Did you say that you liked her?

B: No, I told her that I loved her.

Great job.

Now you know the difference between ‘say’ and ‘tell’.

It takes a little practice but I know you will master these words.

I will see you in the next video.