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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