This mini episode teaches you a common meaning of the word “tell.”
Episode 187 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you a common meaning of the word “tell.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello, this is Hyeonjeong from Seoul. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 187 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let's get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I am going to teach you about one meaning of the word tell. T-e-l-l. You already know tell as a verb meaning “to give information to somebody” or “to explain something to somebody.”
There is another meaning of the word tell that is very, very common. And if you don't understand this meaning, you might find some simple sentences a little bit confusing.
Here is this other meaning of the word tell. Tell can also mean “to learn by observing something.” To learn by observing something. Let me give you an example of a sentence that uses tell with this other meaning.
“I could tell by looking out the window that it was going to rain later.” I could tell by looking out the window that it was going to rain later.
In this sentence, tell does not mean “to give somebody some information.” It doesn't mean something like “I gave people the information that it was going to rain... by looking out the window.” That doesn't really mean anything at all. That's a total mess.
What it means in this sentence is “I could see, or I could recognize, or I could know, I could learn that it was going to rain by looking out the window.” When I looked out the window, I could see the color of the sky. I could see some dark clouds. Maybe I could see that a strong wind was blowing. And that's how I knew—that's how I could tell—that it was going to rain.
This meaning of tell is “to learn, or to see, or to understand, or to recognize by observing something.”
You can often tell someone's mood by looking at their face. You can see, learn, or recognize their mood by observing their face. If your friend is angry, you can often tell by looking at her face. If your friend is happy, you can often tell by looking at his face. You can often see or learn or observe or recognize by looking at someone's face.
That is this other meaning of the word tell that maybe you have found confusing in the past. And now you will have an easier time with sentences that include the word tell.
Outro
And that's the end of episode 187 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can use at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Hyeonjeong recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I'll be back soon with another episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye. I'll see you soon.