Talk to vs talk with

Hi, just a quick question to other ESL teachers here.

Do you generally teach "to talk to" or "to talk with"? Most of my students have picked up a lot of their English from American TV, films or visits to the USA and consequently seem to say "talk with" a lot.

As a British English native speaker, I use "to talk to" (although I frequently explain the expression "The company is in talks with various manufacturers....")

Do you see talk to/with as a British/American difference? I generally teach both but am currently working on an exercise using prepositions and I really only want one possible correct answer for each question.

Thanks.

Hi emsr2d2

As an NES, but not a teacher, I would personnaly use:

"talk to" in a case where I did most of the talking, as in: "I'll have to talk to him (a naughty child) about it.

"talk with" where I needed to discuss something with the other person.

It's just my way, teachers may have a different view.

Hope this helps

Regards
NT

emsr2d2 said:

I generally teach both but am currently working on an exercise using prepositions and I really only want one possible correct answer for each question.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I say both.
If you want to set questions with only one answer, why not avoid verbs like 'talk' that you know have more than one answer?

It depends on what you are trying to use. Like for example I want to talk to my teacher tomorrow about a grade at school. I want to talk with a student about my grade.

I was taught to say 'talk to', and that 'talk with' is an informal usage.
However I have noticed that only 'with' is used when talk is used as a noun as in the example above (talks with manufacturers) or I'd like to have a talk with you.


I'm not a native. I may be wrong.