High and tall. What's the difference?

27,048 views ・ 2014-09-30

Simple English Videos


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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I'm taller than you. No, you're not. Yes, I am. How did you do that?
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When do we use high and when do we use tall?
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A bulb's out. The ceiling's too high. I can't reach.
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We use high to talk about how far off the gound things are. So we talk about high ceilings.
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We talk about high heels. And we say planes fly high in the sky.
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Now this unicycle is a long way off the gound, so is it high or is it tall?
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Well, the man riding it is high up, but we'd also say the unicycle is tall, because there's
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another rule we follow. When things are higher than they are wide,
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we say tall. People are higher than they're wide, so we talk about tall people.
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How tall are you? Three metres. Here are some more things that are tall.
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When things are shorther than they're wide, we say 'high'. Let's look at some things that are high.
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OK Vicki, your first question for fifty dollars. What's the highest mountain in the world?
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It's Mount Everest. Right for fifty dollars! And now your second question for two hundred
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dollars. What's the tallest building in the world?
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Oh! It's in Dubai, I think. The clock is ticking. I can't remember.
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Oh, sorry Vicki. It's the Burj Khalifa. Oh! This is our deck and that's the Comcast Tower.
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It's the tallest building between New York and Chicago.
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The Comcast Tower is higher than it's wide so we say it's tall.
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A window can be both high and tall but the meaning is different.
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If it's a high window, it's a long way from the ground. But if it's a tall window, it's
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higher than it's wide. Hey, give me that!
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Now I'm taller than you! Hmph!
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