English grammar - Say and tell

Resource centre - English grammar - Say and tell

Form and meaning

Direct and indirect speech

1. We use say and tell in both direct and indirect speech.
   • Direct speech: I said "I'm hungry."  /  I told him "I'm hungry."
     Indirect speech: I said that I was hungry  /  I told him that I was hungry.
2. We cannot use say or tell with indirect questions.
   • Jim told/said me if I wanted to play football - Incorrect
     Jim asked (me) if I wanted to play football - Correct

Using objects

1. With tell, we say who is told.
   • He told me that he liked playing tennis - Correct
     He said me that he liked playing tennis - Incorrect
     He told that he liked playing tennis - Incorrect
2. With say, if we want to use a personal object, we use to.
   • He said to them that he would be late.
3. With other objects, we don't usually use tell.
   • He said a strange thing - Correct
     He told a strange thing - Unusual

Orders and instructions

1. We can use tell + object + infinitive to give orders and instructions.
   • I told my son to stop shouting.
   • She told me to shut up.

Teaching ideas for say and tell

How do you teach say and tell? Add your idea »

Marisabel

  We use 'tell' to give or ask for information. For example:
"Please tell me your name."
"Could you tell me your address?"
"I told him the time."
We wouldn't use 'say' in these examples as they are all asking for information.

Mark

  I like to keep it simple and I focus on 'say something' and 'tell someone'. The details come with lots of practice.

Liz

  I use a whispering game where I whisper into a student's ear a sentence using say or tell and the student is to report to the next person whatever he/she heard... this person is to write down whatever he/she heard and pass on the message until it reaches the last person. This can be done in groups. The last students are then asked to compare their sentences and if the sentences are different, they then check each others work and figure out the original sentence.

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