What is the difference between hanashi and monogatari?


Both seem to mean story so I am wondering what the difference between them is.




はなし（話） is the most basic word for any spoken content, that can be translated
as _talk_ , _story_ , _rumor_ , _argument_ , _report_ , _discourse_ etc. as
far as I can think of off the top of my head.

ものがたり（物語） is an old word that means "story-telling", and due to long-standing
tradition 「X ものがたり」 becomes a fixed expression to say "tale of X", such as
カンタベリー物語 _Canterbury Tales_ or 二都【にと】物語 _A Tale of Two Cities_.

はなし has few special meanings, but we specifically refer to an _episode_ of
[rakugo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakugo) by this word (in this case,
it's usually written in kanji 噺).

