
23 Jun Say or tell?
When should we use say or tell? We need to keep a couple of rules in mind when deciding whether to use say or tell. Let’s have a look at some examples…
He said me he was busy.
-Swisstake
First of all, if we can’t say ‘he said me‘, how should we say it? There are actually two ways:
He told me he was busy.
He said he was busy.
So, what’s the difference?
Say
Say is usually used without a personal object (also known as an indirect object), which means we usually don’t use it with the words me, you, her, him, it, us, or them.
However, we can use say with a personal object by adding to:
Tell
Tell is used to mean instruct or inform. We don’t use tell with greetings or questions. In such cases, we use say:
When we use tell, we usually mention the person being spoken to or addressed. This means we need to use personal objects like me, her, him, and so on.
Note: you can omit that in such sentences – he told me he was busy.
We can also use tell with some expressions without using a personal object. Here are some common examples:
Tell can also be used with an object and an infinitive to mean order or instruct:
Direct Speech
Direct speech is used to quote or repeat something in the same way it was said. We usually use say with direct speech:

Indirect Speech
Indirect speech (also known as reported speech) is used to report or say what someone said. We also change the tense of the words we’re reporting to show that something was said in the past.
We can use tell in indirect speech when we want to mention who was being spoken to. With tell, we need to use an indirect object. On the other hand, we can use say if we don’t include an indirect object. Compare these two sentences:
Well, that’s it! Simply put, we say something or say something to someone, and we tell someone something.