Monday, January 19, 2009

Are you TALKing or SPEAKing?

This is something interesting (boring for many :D) which I was searching for last night!
What is the difference between the words "talking" and "speaking"? When to use what?
Talk is less formal, and is more in reference to a casual act of speaking, like a conversation whereas Speak is the more formal word of the two.
If you say, "He is going to speak at the rally", a person would assume that person is going to be on the podium speaking to the audience.

If you say, "He is going to talk at the rally", a person would assume that person is going to be speaking more intimately in converstaion with people.

So, to reference someone's ability to communicate, we use the more formal word "speak".
The above is what I read on an article over the web. After going through couple of other board discussions and blogs what I concluded inshort is
"Speak" need not have interaction but sure do have listeners (or audiences); it is the other way round for "Talk". "Talking" is mere chatting.
A professor does not talk in the class but speak where as the students are talking in the class whilst the professor is speaking. U getting? :)
Refer for more :
Okay now I have a doubt - If the word "Speech" was derived from "Speak", was "Teach" derived from "Talk"?

0 comments: