Another

Is an adjective describing a singular nonspecific countable noun or pronoun. If you don’t remember what countable and uncountable nouns are, go back to the blog and review that topic first.

Meanings:

• one more, an additional, an extra
• a different one; an alternative one

Examples:

• “Let’s meet another day.” (Let’s meet on a different day)
• “I’d like another piece of cake.” (I’d like one more piece of cake)

The nouns (“day” and “piece”) in both sentences are countable and singular nouns.

The nouns in both sentences are also not specific. This means that the speaker doesn’t care which day or piece of cake he gets; he just wants a different one. He wants another one, but he hasn’t said (or it isn’t clear or important) which one.

Important notes:

1. Another is really “an (the indefinite article) + other.” You can use “another” before a noun whenever you can use the indefinite article “a(n)” before a noun.

2. Another can only be used before a plural noun when that noun is preceded by a number, or words/phrases such as a couple of, few, etc.

• The investigation will take another two weeks/couple of weeks.

3. Another can be used before “one” when the meaning is clear from the preceding text. 

• You’ve already had an ice-cream. You can’t have another one.

Other

Is an adjective describing a plural or uncountable nonspecific noun or pronoun.

Meaning:

• different, alternative

Examples:

• “Other people have problems, too.” [people = plural noun]
• “This book has other information.” [information = uncountable noun]

The nouns in both sentences are not specific, just like with “another”. The speaker doesn’t specify which other people have problems, or what other information the book has.

Important note:

If we use other before a singular countable noun or pronoun, we must use another determiner before it:

I don’t like the red one. I prefer the other colour. (Here the definite article the is the other determiner)

Jeremy is at university; our other son is still at school. (Here our is the other determiner)

He got 100% in the final examination. No other student has ever achieved that. (Here no is the other determiner)

There’s one other thing we need to discuss before we finish. (Here one is the other determiner)

Quiz

Choose between another, other and the other to complete the following text:

Answers

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The verbs Say, Tell, Talk, Speak are very similar, however most of the time they cannot be used interchangeably.

SAY/TELL

These verbs are slightly different in the way they are used:

SAY means to express something with words, and

TELL means to give information to a person or to instruct.

Examples:

“Where are they going? She didn’t tell me.” (She didn’t give me the information)

“What did he say?” (what did he express with words?)

“What did he tell you?” (what information did he give you?)

“Say ‘hi’ to Paul for me!”

“Tom’s mother tells him to clean his room.” (instructs him)

Another very important difference is that when you use TELL you MUST have a person following the verb.

For example: “He tells me to do it.” (“me” is the person following the verb “tells”)

SAY is most often used without a person following it.

For example: “Where are they going? She didn’t say.”

If we want to put a person after SAY, we use the preposition to, as in: “I say to all the people of this great country, let’s come together!”

Here are some more illustrations of this difference in almost identical sentences:

“I want to say something about our teacher.”

“I want to tell him something about our teacher.”

“Did he say how it happened?”

“Did he tell you how it happened?”

SPEAK/TALK

Many times you can use SPEAK and TALK interchangeably, but there are a few slight differences between them:

SPEAK is a bit more formal. It also refers to more general topics than TALK.

For example:

“Can I speak with you?”

This is quite general, we’re not being specific about what we want to speak about. But it also sounds a bit more formal, and it sounds like the conversation will be important.

When you use TALK you might add the proposition “about”, as in “Talk about something.”, and TALK is a little more specific.

“Can I talk with you?”

This is a little more casual, a little informal, it doesn’t sound as important. And if we add “about” we can add some more detail, as in “Can we talk about your brother?”

IMPORTANT NOTES

1. You can only use SPEAK when you’re talking about languages.

“They speak French.” NOT “They talk French.”

Though you might hear people say “They talk in French”.

“How many languages do you speak?” NOT “How many languages do you talk?”

2. The following prepositions can be used with these verbs: to, with, about.  You can talk to someone, you can speak to someone, you can talk with someone, or you can speak with someone, or you can speak about something, or you can talk about something – or someone.

QUIZ

Choose the correct verb in the sentences below:

1. Let’s __________ my mother that we forgot.
2. What do you want to ______ ?
3. Does she _________ Arabic?
4. We usually _________ about the weather.
5. I would like to _________ to you about our marriage.
6. The teacher __________ me to do my homework every day.

ANSWERS

1. tell
2. say
3. speak
4. talk
5. speak
6. tells

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The post The Verbs Say, Tell, Talk, Speak in English appeared first on Adi's Language School.