student asking question

What's the difference between "talk" and "communicate"? Does the word "communicate" indicates something non-verbal as well?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Great question. As verbs, the difference between "communicate" and "talk" is that "communicate" generally just means to successfully give information to someone. It is, therefore, as you said, possible to communicate without speaking (non-verbally). However, "talk" is to communicate, usually by means of speech or some form of verbal communication. Since this clip is talking about the app discord, which allows sound, video, and text messages, they chose the word "communicate" to cover all areas including the non-verbal. Ex: She uses sign language to communicate. Ex: You are always talking but you never really communicate anything. Ex: Please talk to me later. I have to finish this report. Ex: 90% of communication is non-verbal.

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