Do you have a minute to spare to learn some English? Phil’s altogether pleased to be able to explain all together and altogether. Give us 60 seconds and we’ll give you the English!
Phil
Hi I’m Phil and I’m going to tell you the difference between all together and altogether.
Yes, they sound the same, but they’re not.
All together – that’s two words and two ‘L’s – means everything or everyone being or doing something together with everything or everyone else. Let’s sing all together! Or: Put the vegetables in the bowl and mix them all together.
Altogether – that’s one word and one ‘L’ – is an adverb and it means completely or entirely. My brother has an altogether different personality to me. He’s nothing like me!
So if you have altogether as one complete word, it means completely or entirely. And if we have all together as two words together then that means everything or everyone together.
All together vs Altogether
Pronunciation
All together and altogether are pronounced the same.
All together
All together means ‘everything or everyone being or doing something together with everything or everyone else’.
- Let’s sing all together!
- Put the vegetetables in the bowl and mix them all together.
- Keeping all together, they ran to the top of the hill.
Altogether
Altogether means ‘completely’ or ‘entirely’.
- My brother has an altogether different personality to me.
- I think this is an altogether irrelevant topic. Could we return to the meeting please?
- Altogether, it wasn’t a bad holiday!