Talk to / about / with
Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Gold Forest English podcast.
My name is Jordan and today I want to talk to you about prepositions.
So prepositions are the small words like to, with, about or for, and there's many others as well. Propositions are used frequently in English. We use them quite a lot. And and they can be used with verbs or with adjectives. They can be used in a variety of different types of sentences. But the important thing about propositions is that they really change the meaning of a word or phrase depending on which proposition you use.
Let's take the verb talk as our example. We can use the verb talk with different propositions to change the meaning.
First, we'll think about talk about. Talk about using the proposition about, and about is often used to give the meaning of a topic or a subject. So we use it with different verbs like talk about, think about, comp complain about worry about, about is indicating the topic, the idea that's being used. So we can use talk about to show that we're discussing a topic. For example, I talked about my holiday plans. That is the topic of my speech, the topic of my talking.
Talk about with a topic… talk to. We're using a different proposition now. We've got to. Talk to. To is a preposition which often gives the meaning of a single down. direction, movement or direction towards something. It's got this like a one-way movement. You can think of it like an arrow. If I'm talking to someone, it's like I'm I'm sending my words, I'm giving my words to that person. If you're listening to something, it's like the sound is moving to your ears. It's coming in one direction. So talk to is about speaking, speaking to a person, and it's it's really got that one-way focus. So you might use it to explain a situation where you have got some important things to say, and the other person is mostly listening. So, for example, I need to talk to my manager about the problem in my project. So I need to give the information to my manager and the manager is mostly going to be listening. This conversation with my manager is mostly me talking and them listening. So I'm talking to my manager about the problem with my project.
This is a bit different from talk with. Talk with has the proposition with. And the preposition with indicates this feeling of together or connection and cooperation. It's got multiple things sharing and connecting together. Talk with is two people talking or many people talking. argue with, meet with. So we're using the word with the preposition with, to show that it's multiple people doing the action together. So when we talk with somebody, it's definitely a two-way conversation. It's more balanced, listening and talking, balanced, between the two people. So, for example, I talked with my friends about our plans for the Christmas season. We talked together about our plans and ideas for the Christmas time.
So our verb talk is changed quite strong changes if we use different prepositions. Talk about, talk to, and talk with. Prepositions can be very difficult because sometimes they follow rules and patterns, like the ones we've talked about today, about is giving a topic. To is showing a one direction movement, and with is giving the idea of shared connection and together. But sometimes prepositions don't follow patterns and you just need to learn which preposition is most commonly used with which word. So they can be a bit difficult.
The important thing to do is is try and read English and listen to English regularly so that your brain can remember the patterns of prepositions and which preposition is used with which word, getting that daily intake of English is very beneficial for your vocabulary.
All right. If you want to learn some more about propositions and there is a full blog post on the website, goldforestacademy.com, where I talk about some different propositions with different verbs including talk. So check that out if you want some more information.
Thank you very much for listening. I'll see you in the next episode. Goodbye.