These exercises are about using the verb 'to talk ' combined with particles:
'to talk at' someone means to speak to someone without listening to them, there is no dialogue.
- She just talks at me. She never lets me say a word.
- He doesn't talk to you, he just talks at you.
'to talk round' a problem or subject means that you avoid discussing the important point.
- I feel we didn't get to the point, we talked around it for hours.
- She just talked round the problem but didn't say anything of importance.
'to talk back' means to reply rudely instead of being polite.
- He was very polite and didn't talk back to his parents.
- Her children are not at all well brought up. They talk back to everyone.
'to talk down' means to reduce the importance of something, make something smaller than it is.
- He is forever talking me down and making me feel useless.
- They talked down the success of our project as they were very jealous.
'to talk down to' someone is to speak to someone as if they were inferior to you.
- She talked down to me as if I was a child.
- The teacher talks down to her students as if they were idiots.
'to talk someone into' means to persuade someone to do something.
- He doesn't want to do it but I think I can talk him into it.
- She talked me into going with her even though I didn’t want to.
'to talk someone out of' means to persuade someone not to do something.
- I talked her out of buying that car. She doesn't need to spend so much money.
- I wanted to do a parachute jump but he talked me out of it saying it was dangerous.
'to talk over' means to discuss a problem or situation before making a decision.
- I want to talk things over with Freddie first. He always gives good advice.
- Can we talk it over? I think you are being too hasty.
'to talk through' means to help someone to understand something by explaining the details.
- Can you talk me through the procedure? I'm not sure what I have to do.
- I'll talk you through it step by step as you do it.
'to talk up' means to speak enthusiastically about something so that it appears more interesting.
- When you demonstrate the products, talk up the advantages of buying them.
- I'm sure he talked up my skills to his boss to make him sure he hired me
