 Talk to or talk with from espressoenglish.net. A lot of students asked me about the difference between talk to and talk with. There's essentially no difference when two people are having a conversation and both of them are speaking. You can say, Sue is talking to John or Sue is talking with John. They're the same. Some people claim that talk to should be used when it's only one person speaking and talk with should be used when it's more of a two-sided discussion. However, in practice many native speakers use both interchangeably. Here's some more examples. Can I talk to you for a minute or can I talk with you for a minute? Brian's over there talking to Matt or Brian's over there talking with Matt. I talked to my boss and she said I could take a day off or I talked with my boss and she said I could take a day off. Let's look at some more prepositions that can be used after the verb talk. Talk about is the most common way to express speaking about a topic. The topic can be serious or not so serious. Here's some examples. We talked about our favorite movies. Everyone's talking about the World Cup. They always talk about me behind my back. This means they talk about me when I'm not present or not listening. The word discuss means talk about. Be careful not to make this common error. Don't say we discussed about the problem. That's not correct. You should say we discussed the problem or we talked about the problem. We use talk over and talk through to describe a more detailed in-depth discussion. Often when there's a decision to be made or a problem or conflict that needs to be resolved. For example, I'm not about to buy a car on a whim. I need to talk it over with my wife first. On a whim means on impulse or spontaneously. The speaker is saying I need to talk it over with my wife because buying a car is a big decision and it needs to be discussed. Here's another example. My business partner and I talked things over and came up with the plan. Came up with means created or invented and again talked things over refers to an in-depth discussion. If you're not happy in the relationship you should talk it through with your boyfriend. In this case we have a problem and we need to talk it through, discuss the problem in depth. The IT guy talked us through the installation of the new computer program. To talk someone through something has another meaning to explain a process. Finally we have talk someone into and talk someone out of. To talk someone into doing something means to convince that person to do it. He or she didn't want to do it but you managed to change their mind. For example, I was hesitant to try ice skating but Helen talked me into going. She convinced me to go. Let's see if we can talk Pete into giving us free food. I can't believe the salesman talked you into buying a $7000 stereo. The opposite of talk someone into something is talk someone out of doing something meaning to convince the person not to do it. For example, I was going to buy an iPhone but Fred talked me out of it by telling me all the ways that Samsung phones are better. He wants to get a giant tattoo and his wife is trying to talk him out of it. I'm glad my friend talked me out of quitting school when I was about to give up. When speaking English we use a lot of phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and a preposition and I have a course that's a fast, fun way to learn them. It's the phrasal verbs in conversation course available at espressoenglish.net.