7 Most Common Phrasal Verbs with TELL tell a lie tell the difference...

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hi everybody my name is Alisha in this

lesson we’re going to talk about some

common expressions that use the verb

tell so let’s take a look some of these

will be phrasal verbs some of these will

be kind of just set expressions that are

very commonly used at least in American

English let’s get started

okay first expression for today is tell

the difference tell the difference means

to recognize the differences between two

or more things so when you’re comparing

two similar items we can use the

expression to tell the difference to

express an ability to identify things

that are not the same between two things

let’s look at an example of how to use

this I can’t tell the difference between

the photos in this example situation

there are two similar photos and there

are some points in the photos that are

different but here the speaker says I

can’t tell the difference which means I

don’t know which parts of the photos are

different so in other words these two

photos look the same or these we don’t

know if it’s two photos but these

multiple photos these these photos in

this group they all appear the same to

the speaker the second expression in

today’s lesson is similar to tell

something apart like to tell two things

apart to tell a few things apart this

has the same meaning as tell the

difference so we use this when again

we’re trying to compare two or more

things and we’re trying to identify the

things that are unique the things that

are different in an example sentence can

you tell the twins apart so this is

phrased as a question here we see tell

followed by the twins

so in this case a twin is used the twins

refers to two people who have the same

genetic makeup which means there are two

people sometimes who have the same

appearance in this case it’s probably

two people siblings that have the same

appearance so the question can you tell

the twins apart means do you know how to

understand the differences between this

person and this person they look the

same but do you know which person is

which so this is maybe a common question

when talking about twins identical twins

identical means they have exactly the

same features or very close to the same

features okay let’s continue on to the

next expression the next expression or

the next two expressions kind of come as

a pair we could consider them as a pair

let’s look at the first one tell the

truth to tell the truth you’ll notice

that we use the article the here this

will come back to this point in a minute

but to tell the truth means to give

honest information to give honest

information so you’re sharing things

that are true you are giving real

information true information honest

information in an example a question why

didn’t he tell the truth why didn’t he

tell the truth in other words someone

did not share honest information someone

did not share true information someone

did what we’ll talk about in the next

expression someone in my example here

told a lie so in present tense the

expression is tell a lie tell a lie in

this expression you’ll notice we’re

using ah not the here we’re using the

because truth there is only one truth to

tell the truth means to give the real

information about a situation about a

conversation and so on to tell a lie

there can be many lies we can create any

information to create a lie so there’s

no the used here tell the lie is

incorrect please use tell a lie and tell

the

truth so to tell a lie is the opposite

of tell the truth to tell a lie is to

give false information information that

is not true it’s information that is

dishonest so people who are dishonest

perhaps often tell lies in an example

sentence telling lies can cause trouble

here I’ve got it in the ing form to tell

a lie or in general telling lies so

giving information that is false can

cause trouble okay let’s move along to

the next expression to tell on somebody

to tell on somebody this means to report

someone’s wrongdoing so this is an

expression that’s very commonly used by

children to tell on your brother to tell

on your sister this is typically used by

kids adults don’t use it very much

unless an adult has done something

that’s really bad or even I suppose a

minor offence and another adult really

wants to report that behavior so we can

use to tell on someone it sounds a

little bit childish though if someone

chooses to report someone else’s

wrongdoing and they use this expression

like to tell on someone it sounds a bit

childish so let’s look at an example my

classmate told on me for starting a fire

my classmate told on me for starting a

fire now what’s not always explained in

these sentences is who the report went

to so my classmate in this case told on

me in other words my classmate reported

me I did something bad in this case I

started a fire my classmate told on me

so we don’t explain here like who

receives this information this is

probably a teacher or some kind of

authority figure at the school but in

these cases when we use this expression

we don’t always include the person that

hearing the report this just explains

like something that happened in terms of

reporting the behavior not about like

who learned about the bad like the bad

thing that we did so my classmate told

on me

we sometimes will include it here though

for example my classmate told the

teacher on me for starting a fire

you might hear it used in this way you

might hear the authority figure included

in an expression maybe about here so my

classmate told the teacher on me or my

classmate told my mom on me

so that’s who heard the information and

the person who did it beep the bad thing

so this you might hear from time to time

but it’s quite common not to use

anything they’re just told on me told on

a person whoever did the bad thing ok

let’s move along then to a similar

sounding expression but with a very

different meaning the expression here is

tell somebody off to tell somebody off

this means to get angry at somebody for

bad behavior

so you’ll notice these two are actually

a little bit different the first one we

talked about here to tell on somebody is

to report someone’s bad behavior to tell

somebody off however means to get angry

at someone for their bad behavior so

there’s not really a report here it’s

like shouting at someone that’s kind of

the feeling here to tell someone off

let’s look at an example his mother told

him off

for coming home late so in this case his

mother is the person who is angry the

person who is maybe getting shouted at

is him in this case a man in this

situation or a boy perhaps so his mother

is angry because he came home late so

his mother told him off for so for shows

us the reason his mother told him off

for coming home late so we’ll commonly

include him or her or me

in this expression between told and off

so his mother told him off for coming

home late okay let’s take a look at the

last expression here the last expression

is tell time to tell time very common it

means to read a clock to read a clock so

to tell time just means to understand

the time of day by looking at a clock or

something similar in example sentence

children learn to tell time in

elementary school so children learn how

to read clocks in elementary school is

what this means so while we may not use

tell time a lot in conversation we use

tell time to refer to understanding how

to read clocks so I think that probably

these expressions at the top except for

tell time are probably more commonly

used in conversation but tell time is

also just commonly used for reference

purposes so I hope that that helps you

okay so these are a few common

expressions that use the verb tell I

hope that you found something new here

of course if you have any questions or

comments or if you want to practice

making sentences with these expressions

please feel free to do so in the comment

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you again soon bye bye

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