Mastering phrasal verbs is an essential step towards fluency.
- Listen to learn about phrasal verbs.
- First, try listening without reading the transcript. After that, listen again to check for any words you might’ve missed.
- You’ll also find a quiz at the end!
Transcript:
In today’s episode I’ll be kicking off a new series focused on phrasal verbs. I’ll be answering 3 questions about phrasal verbs to get you started: What are phrasal verbs? When should we use them? And how can we use them? Stay tuned.
What is a phrasal verb?
So, in my introduction I said that I’ll be “kicking off” a new series. “Kick off” is a phrasal verb. It is the combination of a verb, an action word (in this case “to kick”) and a preposition, a word that shows the relationship between other words (in this case “off”). “Kick” is the verb and “off” is the preposition. When both of these words are combined it creates a new phrase with its own meaning that operates as a verb.
So, the equation for making a phrasal verb is VERB (like go, have, kick) plus PREPOSITION (like up, away, off) equals a PHRASAL VERB. Phrasal verbs are often idiomatic; in other words, they might not make a lot of sense to non-native speakers. They can have a literal meaning or they can have a metaphorical meaning. For example, let’s look at the phrase “turn off”. We can use it literally in the sentence: “Please turn off the TV.” Here, it means to switch the power button on the TV to the off position. Now let’s look at another sentence: “It
really turns me off when people are rude.” Here, turn off has an idiomatic meaning. If something “turns you off” it means you are disgusted or repelled by it—you don’t like it. So as you can see a single phrasal verb can have several definitions.When should I use phrasal verbs?
Alright, now we know what phrasal verbs are. So, when should be use them? Well, phrasal verbs are used in informal speech and writing. You will often hear them when talking to friends, listening to music, or browsing social media. You don’t want to use phrasal verbs in professional situations, so avoid using them when writing academic papers, giving presentations, or e-mailing clients or coworkers.
For example, let’s look at the phrasal verb “pick out” which means to choose or to select something. It would be perfectly fine to say to your friends “let’s pick out a movie to watch tonight”. Saying “let’s select a movie to watch tonight” would sound too formal and cold, like a robot. But if you were emailing your boss about hiring a new employee, writing “I’ll select a candidate by Friday” sounds much more appropriate than “I’ll pick out a candidate by Friday”. Using “pick out” here makes it sound like you aren’t serious and as though you will be hiring this new employee randomly. We can see that knowing when to switch between phrasal verbs and regular verbs is an incredibly important part of developing your fluency in English.
Remember: use phrasal verbs when you want to be informal and friendly!
How can I use phrasal verbs?
Alright, now that we know when to use phrasal verbs, how do we use them? Phrasal verbs can be intransitive or transitive. Intransitive means the verb doesn’t have a direct object. For example “break down”, which means to stop working.” My new computer broke down after a year.” Break down doesn’t have an object so “break” and “down” are used together and cannot be separated. Here you cannot put an object after the phrasal verb. Transitive phrasal verbs are a bit more complicated because while most can be separated, others cannot. For example, “take out”, which means to remove. This can be separated. “Please take out the pizza from the oven”. Can be changed to “Please take the pizza out of the oven”. Unfortunately, there isn’t any way for you to know which phrasal verbs can be separated like this and which can’t. To make things even more complex, some phrasal verbs can be intransitive in one sentence and transitive in another. So the only way you’ll learn the correct usage is through exposure to the language. Practice makes perfect.
Transitive phrasal verbs need an object. Intransitive phrasal verbs don’t have an object. Some can be separated and others cannot.
Some advice about studying phrasal verbs.
So that wraps up our little introduction to phrasal verbs. Can you guess what the phrasal verb “wrap up” means here? Anyway, phrasal verbs are one of the most difficult aspects of learning English.
- They can be literal or metaphorical.
- Some can have one, two, or even 5 different meanings.
- Sometimes we can use the two words together while other times we can separate them.
Sounds fun …right? Well, here’s some tips on how to make things a little bit easier. When you notice a phrasal verb try to guess the meaning from the context of the sentence. For example, “wrap up” means “to end”, as you might have guessed when I used that phrasal verb earlier. Also, try to learn phrasal verbs in context. Instead of learning lists of phrasal verbs, choose a few at a time and make sentences with them. Make the sentences relevant to your life. Try to study phrasal verbs related to a single topic. For example, if I wanted to study some phrasal verbs about clothing I could choose “put on, take off, and try on”. So I could write “I have to put on my jacket before work. I never take off my hat. I hate trying on clothes at the store.” By grouping phrasal verbs together like this and making your own sentences in this way you are much more likely to remember them. I hope this new series on phrasal verbs will be helpful for you. See ya next time!
