Phrasal Verbs to Easily Grow Your Vocab

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They’re going to help you double or even triple your English vocabulary!
How? Well, in the English words, one word can have many different meanings.
So by learning just one English word, you can often end up adding two—or more—to your vocabulary!
For example, a crane can be a bird with long legs or a tall machine that helps lift heavy objects.
If you use it as a verb, you might be craning your neck (stretching it) to see something.

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Look, you’ve already learned three new words with just one! (Fun fact: Words like these are called homonyms. They’re spelled the same but have different meanings.)

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One of these ways involves phrasal verbs.
Phrasal verbs open up a whole new world of possibilities for speaking English. They are phrases that give verbs completely different meanings. They are also used incredibly often in everyday conversation, which makes them important to know.

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For example, with phrasal verbs, when your kitten comes across(finds) your paper cranes and makes one fall down (drop), you can either shout “Cut it out!” to make him stop, or you can give in and let your kitten play with the paper crafts.

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See how useful they are? You probably already know the verbs “come,” “fall,” “cut” and “give,” but the four bold phrasal verbs above might be new.

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So come on, let’s learn some phrasal verbs.

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What Is a Phrasal Verb?

A phrasal verb is a phrase that’s made up of a verb and another word or two, usually a preposition but sometimes an adverb.

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So before we can talk about phrasal verbs, it’s important to understand what verbs, prepositions and adverbs are.

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A verb is an action word. It describes something happening (i.e. hearing, seeing), a state of being (i.e. to live, to sleep), or an action being done (i.e. to read, to sing).

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A preposition is a word that describes the relationship between two words. For example, the bees are above the table or under the table, but not inside the table (hopefully). Prepositions mainly deal with place or direction (i.e. on, through, around) and time (i.e. “by” or “around” a certain time).

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An adverb is a word that describes a verb. For example, you can run quickly or slowly and arrive to class early or late.

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Now that you know what verbs and prepositions are, you’re ready to start putting them together into phrasal verbs.

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Phrasal verbs work by changing the verb’s meaning based on the preposition that follows them.

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It’s easier than you think—you probably already know a number of phrasal verbs. For example, read the last sentence before this section: “So come on, let’s learn some phrasal verbs.” The words “come on” in that sentence are a phrasal verb!

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The word “come,” on its own, means to move towards something. Together with the preposition “on,” though, the phrase “come on” becomes a phrase of encouragement.

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There are many other phrasal verbs out there!

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How to Learn Phrasal Verbs

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English phrasal verbs are everywhere, so one of the best ways to learn them is to try to listen for them. These phrases are commonly used, and would not be unusual to hear in a conversation. Do you hear a verb used together with another word very often? It might be a phrasal verb.

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If you’re not sure whether a phrase is a phrasal verb or just a verb that happened to be spoken with a preposition, try looking it up. Most dictionaries have entries for phrasal verbs, so look the phrase up to be sure. You can also look up the phrase in the English Page phrasal dictionary which is an excellent resource, so save that link!

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Some phrasal verb meanings are obvious—like “fall down”—but some are almost like idioms since they can’t be literally translated—like “come on.” To make them easier to learn, you can try grouping phrasal verbs into categories like time of day (i.e. wake up, lie down) or positive (i.e. cheer up) and negative (i.e. give up).

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There are so many phrasal verbs that it might seem difficult to learn them all. But many of these phrases become natural after a while—all it takes is some repetition and practice.

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How to Use Phrasal Verbs in English

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Phrasal verbs are used just like verbs—anywhere they make sense!

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Usually, the verb and preposition in a phrasal verb need to be said together, like in the phrase “fall down.” In some cases, though, you can separate the verb and the preposition by putting other words in between them.

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For example: the phrase “turn off” can be used just like that, or it can be interrupted by stating what you’re turning off. In other words, you can say “turn off the TV,” but you can also say “turn the TV off.” Both are correct!

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Another thing to keep in mind about phrasal verbs is that they are still verbs. That means the verb part of the phrase can be changed depending on the tense of the sentence. So “turn off” can also be “turned off” and “turning off,” for example.

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It will take you a while to get used to which phrasal verbs can be separated and which can’t, so hang in there!

[mokhtaro]

thank you for this lesson