What is the difference between reply and answer

One sec, gotta respond to my texts. Did you answer Judy about the party? I think I hear the door. Can you answer it? Soon we can do an episode on specific collocations and expressions to help with this even more. View Full Bio. June 9, Your browser does not support the audio element. English Fluency English Expressions. Test Your English Level. Related Posts. This is good to keep in mind. When you're answering something, you're answering some questions or there's some questions, some inquiry that you're reacting to so.

There's something that's like a question being posed. That's a good thing to keep in mind for this verb. Also, we use "answer" for these two cases. When we pick up the phone -- there's an incoming phone call. Your phone is ringing. When you pick up the phone, we use the verb "answer" to describe that. We say, "To answer the phone. Please answer your phone. When the guest arrives at the door, or at the reception, or there's some kind of door area where you need to receive your guests, we use the verb "answer" to refer to opening the door and greeting the guests.

If someone knocks on the door to announce they have arrived at your home, you go to the door, open it, and we say that's called answering the door. Our guests are here. To answer your phone is to pick up the phone when your phone rings. These are a couple other ways that we use the verb "answer. All right, first one, "Please answer the questions. We could use this in like a discussion as well. Here's a negative example. Now, that's "answer. Someone says something, someone poses a question, asks a question.

To react to that, we can use the verb "reply," or rather, we can use "reply" to refer to our reaction to that thing. We'll see in just a moment. That's used as a noun, but you can use it as a verb like, "Please reply at your earliest convenience," for example.

You could use that to the emails. That's what I tend to use. Anyway, some examples of using "reply" here, first, "She replies to emails really quickly. She gives something back. She replies. Another example, "He never replied to my message. I sent a message to someone.

I did not receive a reaction. I can say, "He never replied to my message. We also used this in writing, like in novels and books, to describe someone's reaction. A question, "What time is it? Lots of storytelling uses "reply" as well. I tend to use "reply" as a noun and as a verb a lot in my email writing. Let's move along to "respond" then.

These two have that same meaning. However, "respond" sounds a bit more formal than "reply. Using this is much better for business situations.

Also, "respond" has an additional meaning that's not related exactly to communication. I'll share some examples of this, but this is not the focus meaning for this lesson, but I'll introduce some examples. Let's look at examples of this part. First, "I need to respond to that email.

It sounds a little more important. Another one, a question, "Have you responded to those inquiries yet? He has an answer for everything. Neither of these definitions indicate a difference between answer and reply. But, this does not mean that there is no difference between the two words. Look at the following example to understand this difference.

An answer would have included the directions to the railway station. Thus, reply can refer to any response. I received a reply from the HR manager. Only the user who asked this question will see who disagreed with this answer. Read more comments. English UK. They're pretty much the same. Some slight differences in usage. See a translation.