AEE 2479: Relationship Talk in English: Close to or Close With?

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: All Ears English Podcast
Episode: 2479 – Relationship Talk in English: Close to or Close With?
Hosts: Lindsay McMahon & Michelle Kaplan
Air Date: September 16, 2025

Theme:
This episode tackles a subtle yet important grammar and vocabulary question: When describing relationships in English, should you say "close to" someone or "close with" someone? Lindsay and Michelle answer a listener’s question, breaking down the nuanced differences, giving examples, and exploring both relationship and proximity contexts, as well as touching on American cultural expectations around friendships.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Question: “Close to” vs. “Close with”

• Listener "Raw Hunger" on YouTube asks:

  "I heard you using the adjective 'close' with two different prepositions, 'close to' and 'close with', interchangeably. Am I right?"
  ([03:13])

2. Explaining Usage: Relationship Contexts

• "Close with" is primarily used for personal relationships:
  • “Are you close with your partner’s family?” ([02:21])
  • Example: “I’m not close with my brothers, but I’m close with my sister.” ([04:42])
• "Close to" can also be used for relationships:
  • “Are you close to your family?” ([04:54])
  • Both forms are correct and common for relationships in American English, though "close with" might sound slightly more intimate to some speakers. ([09:37])

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3. "Close to" – A Broader Use

• Physical proximity:
  • “My house is close to the grocery store.” ([06:09])
  • Not correct: "My house is close with the grocery store." ([06:27])
• Figurative proximity (almost at a goal):
  • “I’m close to completing the project. I just need 10 more minutes.” ([08:55])
  • Not correct: "I’m close with completing the project." ([09:15])
• Summary: “Close to” is much more versatile—it works for relationships, physical distance, and also as a synonym for "almost." ([11:13])

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4. Subtle Differences in Meaning

• On "close with" vs. "close to" in relationships:

  “Maybe ‘close with’ might signify a slightly more intimacy, like a closer person. But that might just be my feeling. I really think they mean the same thing.”
  – Lindsay ([09:37]) “It’s something where it’s so similar that I wouldn’t really worry about the difference.”
  – Michelle ([10:06])

• Advice: Both are fine; don’t stress over using one or the other in relationship contexts ([11:41], [17:22]).

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5. Practical Examples & Personal Reflections

• Still close with childhood friends?
  “I am really still close with my two friends from growing up. However, I don’t live close to them.” – Michelle ([11:49]) “There’s someone that was my best friend from high school—I’m still close to her.” – Lindsay ([12:14])
• New Year’s goals:
  “Are you close to achieving any New Year’s resolutions?” ([12:38])
• Physical locations:
  “I wish I lived closer to the grocery store.” – Michelle ([13:22])
• Role play (reminder of language in context):
  • “I loved our neighborhood. It was so close to everything.”
  • “Most people aren’t even close with their childhood friends either.” ([13:44]–[14:11])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Lindsay on prepositions:

  “Two is a wider net … you would never say, ‘my house is close with the grocery store.’ Totally weird.” ([06:27])

• Michelle on natural use:

  “Close with sounds to me … I think I more naturally say ‘close with’, but actually, maybe not. You know, it’s easy for me to say this on the episode, but …” ([10:07]) “Our listeners are the ones that know what we actually say because they …” ([10:22])

• Lindsay on language learning:

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t stress, don’t stress over it. It’s very, very picky. You’ll be fine saying ‘close to’ or ‘close with’ when it comes to relationships.” ([17:22])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:21] – Introduction to the topic with personal examples from Lindsay and Michelle
• [03:13] – Listener question is read and appreciated
• [04:21] – Deep dive into “close with” for relationships
• [05:44] – “Close to” as more diverse—used for distance/proximity
• [06:09] – Examples of physical proximity: “close to the grocery store”
• [08:42] – Using “close to” for relationships and for “almost”
• [09:37] – Subtlety and speaker intuition on intimacy
• [11:41] – Rule of thumb: “close with” for relationships, “close to” is broader
• [12:38] – Further context: goals, proximity in daily life
• [13:44] – Role play with examples
• [17:22] – Cultural reflections and final advice

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Cultural Reflections

• The hosts discuss how friendships and proximity can vary by culture, and how in the US it’s typical to move away from your hometown for work or life but still maintain relationships, sometimes from a distance ([14:33], [18:30]).
• They pose a potential poll question to listeners about whether it’s more common in their cultures to remain close with childhood friends or make new friends throughout life, and how proximity affects that outcome.

---

Takeaways

• For relationships: Both “close to” and “close with” are valid; "close with" might, optionally, convey deeper intimacy.
• For other uses: Use “close to” for physical proximity and “almost” situations.
• Don’t worry—native speakers use both, and the difference is minor, especially in conversation.
• Cultural norms influence how and with whom you stay "close" over a lifetime, but language flexibility remains.

---

For more on building conversation skills: Check out Episode 2464, “Build a Better English Conversation with this Bridge.” ([17:36])

Transcript

[A]

This is an All Ears English podcast. Episode 2479 Relationship Talk in English Close to or Close with welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, usa. To get real time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your 7 day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slapp.

[B]

Are you still close with your friends from childhood? Does this vary based on culture? Today, a listener asks us about the difference between close to and close with. We break it down plus explore what's common in the US Listen in today you're in a meeting, someone makes a quick comment, everyone laughs and your still trying to catch what they said. It's not that you don't know English, it's that real conversations are fast, messy and full of slang. If you've ever felt left out because you couldn't follow the flow, you're not alone. The good news? You can train your ear. Start by finding out what your level is and what's tripping you up so that you can improve quickly. Take our [e-mail] fluency score one more time. Go to allearsenglish.com flu e n c Y S C O R E.

[A]

Hey there, Michelle. How's it going today?

[B]

Good, Lindsay. How are you?

[A]

Fantastic. Fantastic. What are we getting into on Allers English today?

[B]

All right. So Lindsay, are you close with your partner's family?

[A]

Yeah, I would say that I am close with them. I, I think we get along really well and we spend a fair amount of time together, especially longer trips. Like we'll go out to LA a lot. They're part of the family is in la and we have a really good time when we do. So. Yeah, I would say so.

[B]

That's great. That's great. Yeah, I'm close with Dan's family as well. It's a, it's a, it's, it's a party. There's, it's, it's busy. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. So it's a, that's kind of a, a cool thing about getting married and getting to know somebody else's family. Get close with them. Yeah. So today we're going to answer a listener question. This listener question comes to us from YouTube. Going to be a good one. Really important question, Lindsay. Would you like to read it for us?

[A]

I would love to read the question. Here we go. So this is From Raw Hunger 23:46. Big shout out to you guys. I have been a fan since three years ago and I highly appreciate your effort in picking the authentic material and topics that English learners can relate to.

[B]

Well, thank you. Oh, thank you.

[A]

We so appreciate that comment.

[B]

Definitely.

[A]

I always find myself binge watching your videos, which I truly enjoy. That's great.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

In this video, I heard you using the adjective close with close with two different prepositions. If I'm not mistaken, you used close to and close with interchangeably. Am I right? Good question, Michelle. Good question.

[B]

Very good question. I don't have the example from the episode, but we're going to just go into the differences with close to and close with. So because this is a. Yeah, really good question. Question. I mean, let's, let's talk through this question, Lindsay. So close with. Okay, what do you think when you hear that?

[A]

So I think often you might hear you're talking about a relationship.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So having a relationship with someone. You asked me at the top of the show, are you close with your partner's family? A relationship you share between two parties? Right. So are you close with your family? What would be another example, Michelle?

[B]

You could say, let's say you have a big family. You could say, I'm not close with my brothers, but I'm. I am close with my sister.

[A]

Yeah. Now can we say, are you close to your brothers? I think we can, right? Yes.

[B]

Yes. And we're going to talk about that in, in just a second because I think close to is a little more diverse and can be used in more ways. But yeah, you could you say, are you close to your family? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. That's fin. So, but guys, make sure you hit the follow button wherever you're listening. To all ears English. We publish five episodes a week and sometimes we do bonuses and we, we got a lot going on here. So make sure you hit follow so that you never miss anything that's going on at this party.

[A]

You got it? Yes. This party. I love it. So true. So relationships, right.

[B]

So when you're so, you know, use.

[A]

Close with when you're talking about relationships. That's kind of a nice preposition to use there. What else, Michelle, do we need to know?

[B]

Yeah. So going over close to. So, yeah, in my opinion and some research I've done, is that close to is A little bit more diverse. Can use be used in more ways. Right. So one way that it can be used in that's different is distance. Right. So my house is close to the grocery store. Lindsay, is your house close to the grocery store?

[A]

Yes, I would say so. It's walkable. It's close to the grocery store. Close to a coffee shop, for example. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I like that.

[A]

So proximity, physical distance is what we're talking about here, right?

[B]

You could you say, is your house close with the grocery store?

[A]

No. See, that's the problem. I see what you're saying now, Michelle. It makes sense. So two is a wider net. And we'll show you all the other ways two works. But you definitely would never say, my house is close with the grocery store. Totally weird.

[B]

No, no. That one wouldn't work.

[A]

No, no, no. And so we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll see all the other ways that two does work, and we'll see that it's a bit broader. Right. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. So how can you find amazing candidates Fast? Easy, easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster, and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. I love that Indeed makes hiring fast. Top candidates are in high demand. And if you want to build a great team, you need to move quickly. Indeed helps you do that. So just how fast is Indeed? Well, in the minute that I've been Talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com AE, just go to Indeed.comA E E right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com a e e that's I n d e e.com a terms and conditions do apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Okay, Michelle, So earlier we said that to close to can actually also be used for relationships. Tell us about this.

[B]

Yeah, so again, as we said before, you can use two instead of with so I'm close to all My friends from high school. So this is the one that's like, close with.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But we can also use it in a way to mean almost. Right. Nearly. Almost. Almost completing something. So I'm close to completing the project. I just need 10 more minutes. So. Yes, you could not say I'm close with completing the project. It wouldn't make sense.

[A]

Nope. No another way. There are actually very few options for close with. And close to is more broad. Right?

[B]

Yes. Love that. Exactly. I mean, Lindsay, as far as relationships, is there any real difference you can think of between the clo. If you say, are you close to this person or close with anything that sounds different to you?

[A]

Close with. Close to. I. I think maybe close with might signify a slight, slightly more intimacy. Like a closer. Closer person. Right. Inner circle person. But that might just be my feeling. I really think they mean the same thing. Like, if I ask you, are you close to your friends from college? Are you close with your friends from college? Legitimately, it means the same thing. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. It's. It's something where it's so similar that I wouldn't really worry about the difference.

[A]

I definitely wouldn't worry.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Close with Sounds to me. I. I don't know. I. I'm. I think I more naturally say close with, but actually, maybe not. You know, it's easy for me to say this on the episode, but it's.

[A]

Possible that our listeners are the ones that know what we actually say because they.

[B]

Right, Exactly. It's. Exactly. So I wouldn't really worry about the difference. But here, this is an interesting example that we're gonna have coming up.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I'm so close with my sister. I wish I lived closer to them. Okay. So, yeah, so you could say I'm so. I'm close with. Right. So that relationship. And now you're saying, I wish I lived closer to them. So the relationship and then the disna. Distance. So now you. You could. Lindsay, could you say it? I'm so close to my sisters. I wish I lived closer to them.

[A]

You could. Yeah. I'm so close to them. I wish that I lived closer to them. For sure, you could.

[B]

And.

[A]

And we know that. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So look how broad and adaptable close to is. Right?

[B]

Yeah. Yes, exactly. So interesting. So that's a really good rule of thumb, guys. If you're not sure, think close with for relationships or close to. And then realize that close to can be used to talk about. Nearly. Right. Almost. You're about to complete something or to talk about proximity, distance. So it's a little bit more useful in that way in different contexts for sure.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Are you still close with any friends from your childhood, would you say? Are there still childhood friends that you're close with?

[B]

Yes. So I am really still close with my two friends from growing up. However, we don't, I don't live close to them. So we, it's, it's the kind of friendship where we don't talk all the time, but when we do, we feel really young again and feel really good. So it's one of those relationships. What about you?

[A]

Oh, yeah, for sure. There's someone that. I was my best friend from high school. I'm still close to her. Close to. Look what I used. Naturally close to her. And so there you go. You can see that close to can work too. And yeah, we see each other a couple times a year. And yes, it's a lot of reflecting on our past. Right. Because her life is very different from mine now. But yeah, it feels like old times when we get together. For sure.

[B]

Yes, yes, exactly. Here's another one. Lindsay, are you close to achieving any New Year's resolutions you made at the beginning of the year? Do you even remember what they were? I don't.

[A]

Michelle, this is what happens right mid year. We're in September now. It's like what did I even decide. Decide I was gonna do? I have no answer for that. What about you? The nail biting thing, did it finally work out?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I might been a little bit better, but yeah, I think it's just gonna be a, a struggle for. No, probably the rest of my life. I don't know that it's something that I can just push away so quickly. But I, I have been doing better.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. In your neighborhood, Michelle, what do you wish you lived closer to in your neighborhood?

[B]

Well, I used to live right next door to the grocery store, so now I am about a five to seven minute drive. So I wish I lived closer to the grocery store so I wouldn't always have to think, am I going to need milk in the next three days?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Just a different way, different way of shopping for sure.

[A]

Sure, for sure. Let's do a role play and show our listeners how this comes to life. So here we are, friends, and we're reminiscing about our childhood. All right, here we go. I loved our neighborhood. It was so close to everything.

[B]

Yeah, it was a great location. So much going on. I'm glad we still live close to each other.

[A]

Same not many people have that.

[B]

Exactly. Most people aren't even close with their childhood friends either.

[A]

That's true. Yeah. I wonder. I. It's true. I wonder. I wonder if around the world that varies depending on how much people leave their hometown, if people stay close with their childhood friends or if it's normal to just have like one or two and then you have your current friends. You know, I wonder if culturally, maybe that'll be our poll question for today. Michelle.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting because I. I'm still close with my, you know, the friends I was telling you about, but I don't live close to either of them. And whereas Dan lives in the same state as his friends from growing up, so we're still very close to them. We, you know, we don't see them all the time. Some of them live closer than. Than others. So those ones we do see a lot, but yeah, they're kind of. Yeah. That's interesting how friendships evolve over time.

[A]

Yeah. And I'm really interested to hear from our listeners if it's different based on, like, what is the cultural expectation of will we stay close to our childhood friends or do we to I make new friends throughout life. We'll see if we can word that question. But guys, you do need to be listening over in Spotify to be able to answer that question. So make sure you're listening in Spotify. If you're listening to our show, you can also listen on YouTube. Michelle, any final thoughts here or let's go through the role play, shall we?

[B]

Yes, let's do it. So you said, I loved our neighborhood. It was so close to everything. So you wouldn't say close with. Because we're talking about proximity here.

[A]

Yeah. And Michelle, when you studied in London, did you have a neighborhood that was close to everything, A little more remote? What was your location like?

[B]

No, it was. Oh, it was awesome. It was in central London. It was. It was. It was just amazing. Every close to everything.

[A]

That's awesome. That is the best. That's the best thing about living in international cities. You want to make sure you're located centrally. I had a great neighborhood in Paris. It wasn't in central Paris, which I was glad because central Paris is very touristy. The Louvre, you know. But it was in Paris. But it was the 14th r d small, so it was a little bit further out. Took like 15 minutes by subway to get to that central area. But honestly, it was. It was a local neighborhood. It was where locals live, which I loved.

[B]

Yeah, that's great. That's so cool that you had that experience as well. So then you, then I said, you.

[A]

Said, I'm glad we still live close to each other. And that's the proximity, like the physical distance. Right.

[B]

We would not say we live close with each other. It wouldn't work.

[A]

Oh, and, and I could see a lot, maybe, a lot of, maybe Romance languages would have some kind of a mistranslation there. So be really careful if you speak Spanish, French, Italian, there may be some kind of translation that we need to pay attention to here. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, right. That's right. And then I said, exactly. Most people aren't close with their childhood friends either. I could have said close to, and that would have been perfectly fine. But I do like how, Lindsay, you mentioned it may be a little bit more intimacy with close with.

[A]

But don't, don't, don't stress, don't stress over it. It's very, very picky. You'll be fine saying close to or close with when it comes to relationships. Michelle, what's another episode our listeners should go to?

[B]

All right, guys, check out episode 2464. That is build a better English conversation with this bridge.

[A]

And what is our takeaway for today? Where do leave our listeners? I mean, first of all, thank you for the question.

[B]

Yes, right, Absolutely. And then. Yeah, Lindsay, I think you brought about an interesting point about how friendships evolve over time. And do most people stay close with their friends from childhood, or is it more about proximity if somebody lives near you? Yes. And, you know, for example, I don't live in the same place where I grew up, and I do know that a lot of my, the people that I knew from high school who still live close to each other, who still live in Maryland, they're all still close with each other, so. Interesting.

[A]

Interesting. Yeah.

[B]

Whereas I'm more. I kind of made a new life. But, but either is, either is good.

[A]

Like, either is good. Either is good. I think it's common. It's, it's coming to leave. Right. In the US it's common to move because of work, although that might be changing with remote work now. So we'll see what things look like in future. Do people tend to stay more in their hometown or their home state and work remotely, or are they still moving across the US for jobs and, and just a new life? Right. Like, you wanted to go to New York. You wanted to start a new life in New York, and you did that. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, really, really cool topic. Maybe we'll get into that in, in open conversation club.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, very interesting. All right, well, thanks to our listener for this question and thanks for chatting about this with me Lindsay today.

[A]

All right, Michelle, talk to you soon. Take care.

[B]

All right, bye bye.

[A]

Thanks for listening to Allears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward/fluencyscore. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.

[C]

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