148 Top Advanced Phrasal Verbs | English Vocabulary Help

These first 10 phrasal verbs all contain the word down, close down.

When something closes down, or if you close down something, it means it stops, it ceases to exist.

So for example, during the pandemic, there were many restaurants in my town that had to close down because they didn't have any customers.

Wear down.

When something wears you down, it means it makes you gradually very tired.

Or sometimes we say if we wear someone down, it means they aren't as patient or they'll finally say yes to a request that we've had for a long time because we've asked them so many times.

It's worn them down.

In college, the constant studying always wore me down.

By the end of my semester i would be so tired and i would not want to open any of my books because it just wore me down.

Track down when you track down something, it means you locate it or you find it, or you can track down a person.

Usually, when you're trying to track something down or someone down, it means that you've been looking for it or them for a long time.

For instance, no matter what, I seem to always be trying to track down my car keys.

When I get home I try to put them in the same place, but sometimes I can't find them because I put them in a weird spot and then I have to track them down.

Tear down.

When you tear down something, you dismantle it, you destroy it, or you demolish it.

This just means you bring it down to the ground.

So this phrasal verb often refers to tearing down a building.

In the United States it's pretty common for older homes to be torn down so that the owners can build a nice brand new home.

And I think it's kind of sad because I think old homes are very charming.

Run down.

If you run someone down it means you chase after them to try to catch them.

This could be if you're kind of hunting them or if they forgot something and you wanted to run them down so you can give it to them.

So, for instance, one time I forgot my phone at a restaurant and the waiter ran me down in the parking lot and said hey, you forgot your phone and it was so nice because I would have been really devastated if I lost my phone at that restaurant.

Narrow down.

When you narrow down a list, you're reducing the amount of possibilities or choices so that you have a smaller set to choose from.

In the United States, when you apply for a job, typically they interview many people for that job, But then they narrow down the candidates and then you have a second interview.

And sometimes they even narrow it down from there to two possible candidates and they interview you again for the job.

So when you're narrowing a list or a set of options down, you're decreasing the amount of options.

Let down.

When you let someone down, it means you disappointed them or you betrayed their trust.

So you lied to them.

For example, you could say, really let me down that you didn't come to my birthday party.

That means it disappointed me.

Maybe the person said they would come and then they decided not to show up.

There are two other ways that we use this phrasal verb quite frequently that I wanted to talk about.

First is letting down your guard.

Which means, you know, not being so cautious.

Your guard would be like the amount of cautiousness that you have.

Or we can say that we let down our hair.

So if we have our hair up in a ponytail especially women and then we take it out and it's down, like mine, we say we let down our hair.

And that phrase to let down your hair is also used just to say that you feel very relaxed as well and not so worried.

Keep down.

When you keep down something, you control it or restrain it.

So we talk about keeping down our emotions, keeping down our voice, which would mean being quiet.

Or we can say we need to keep down our expenses, which means we should not spend too much money.

If you are in a library and you're talking very loudly, The librarian or the person who works at the library will say hey, keep down your voice please.

This means please be quiet, talk quietly.

When someone cracks down on something, it means they're taking actions to eliminate or reduce the amount of a bad behavior.

So they're being very strict if they're cracking down.

In the United States, the government has really cracked down on people who try to evade or not pay their taxes.

This means that there are really high penalties and you can even go to jail for not paying your taxes, because the government has just cracked down on this crime.

Cut down.

To cut down something means to reduce the amount that we do it or to reduce the size.

It can also quite literally mean to cut a tree or cut some sort of vegetation like a plant.

So we cut down a tree.

But more commonly, when we say we're going to cut down on something, it means we're going to try to do it less.

For instance, many, many people want to cut down on using their phone on screen time.

They don't want to be scrolling through apps so much.

So they try to cut down the time that they use their phone.

Next, let's learn 10 phrasal verbs that contain the word up.

Clog up.

When you clog up something, you obstruct or block a passage, an opening or a pipe that is supposed to be clear or free.

In the United States it's quite common to have a garbage disposal in your kitchen and the kitchen sink so you can put food down it and it will grind up the food so that the sink does not get clogged up.

But if you don't have a garbage disposal and you just put large chunks of food down your sink, the drain or the pipe will get clogged up and that could lead to a big disaster.

Tape up.

When you tape up something, you close it or secure it with tape.

Now, tape is obviously a noun, but you can use the word tape as a verb too.

I'm going to tape it.

Or you can say, I'm going to tape it up, which means I'm going to close it with tape.

Oftentimes, when I mail people packages, I tape it up extra so that the package does not get opened while it's being delivered.

A really advanced phrase that we can use in English is to go in with a mindset.

The most popular way I hear this phrase used is you say, I'm going to go in with a positive mindset.

So this is used when you're going into any sort of situation like a meeting or or a negotiation, or maybe you're going into a new job.

You're starting this thing.

And instead of going into the situation being negative, thinking this isn't going to go well, you kind of give yourself a pep talk and you say I'm going to go in with a positive mindset.

So you're going to act like everything's going to be great.

You're trying to be happy.

You're trying to just picture everything going well.

You're going in with a positive mindset.

You might say to someone, hey, don't go in with a negative mindset.

This means, of course, the exact opposite.

Don't go in thinking things are going to go bad and everyone's against you.

Try to be positive.

So you can use this phrase with all sorts of attitudes and emotion.

Don't go in with a scared mindset.

Don't go in with a nervous mindset.

Make sure to go in with an excited mindset.

Make sure to go in with an energetic mindset.

See, there's so many different ways that you can use this phrase when you're approaching a new situation, or you're giving advice to someone approaching a new situation or negotiation, or whatever it might be.

To act up.

So the first particle that we're gonna focus on is phrasal verbs containing up.

This phrasal verb act up.

It's never taught in a textbook or in a regular classroom, but it is so natural and common to use.

If your kids, or just anyone, even an adult, are they're not behaving, you could say that they are acting up, so they have bad behavior.

Or sometimes you know, when the weather is bad outside and the kids can't go out to play, you could say the kids are acting up because they can't go outside and get their energy out.

So you can see how this phrasal verb is really useful when speaking about behavior.

Bad Bill's been acting up again.

Now we also use this phrasal verb in English to describe technology machines, any sort of thing that is not working properly.

Sometimes in movies if a TV isn't working, you know the character in the movie will hit the TV and we'll be like, oh sorry, the TV's acting up and they hit it and it starts working again, which obviously that doesn't really work usually in real life.

But if you have any sort of appliance in your home that just doesn't seem to be working right, and then it will start working again, and then Maybe it's not working again.

You could say it's acting up.

It's starting not to work properly.

One tip I'll give you for this phrasal verb is if something is completely broken, we would not say it's acting up.

It's just if it's not working all the way or it's not working the correct way consistently to brush up on.

So if you brush up on something, it's either a skill or some sort of knowledge that you are trying to learn again or kind of refresh your memory of.

Recently, I decided to brush up on my Spanish.

Honestly, I haven't used my Spanish very much.

And my Spanish is very much classroom Spanish.

You know, I've always been able to have limited conversations with native Spanish speakers, but I just haven't used it in a long time.

So I was using ChatGPT.

I was speaking with the AI and I needed to brush up.

I was really unpracticed with vocabulary.

I was forgetting words.

So I'm going to try to keep practicing.

I'm going to keep brushing up on my Spanish, because at one time I was a better Spanish speaker than I am now.

Maybe you can relate if you have not used a language for a long time.

You might need to brush up on it.

I hope you brushed up on your Spanish.

A lot of times if you're going into an exam or a job interview and you feel pretty confident, but you need to review just a few things.

You know, maybe a few things about the company.

If you're going into a job interview or if you're confident for a test.

Maybe you'll just go and look at your notes very quickly.

You could say, I just need to brush up on a few things.

It's not like full on studying.

You're not studying very intently and hard, but you just need to refresh your memory a little bit.

You need to brush up on some things.

A lot of these phrasal verbs on this list today are very useful in many different situations and can be used in different contexts.

So you definitely need to pay attention to how each one of these is used.

This next phrasal verb is exactly like the others.

So when we say build up, it means accumulate or to increase gradually.

Now let's talk about some examples to help you understand how this phrasal verb is used.

So obviously you could say the snow is building up outside.

That means it's snowing and it's accumulating.

It's getting taller and taller.

Or if you haven't cleaned your house in a while, you could say well, the dust is really building up on the shelves.

That means the dust is increasing.

You know, you have a lot of cleaning to do.

Build up her confidence.

Now, there are things that are not physical, literal that can build up.

For instance, we could say the tension is building up.

Maybe you're in a work meeting and people aren't fighting.

They're not all out mad, but you can tell there is some disagreement and you feel like there could be a fight.

That's when we say the tension in the room or in the meeting is building up.

It's increasing.

This is a common way to use this phrasal verb.

Or we can use it in a more positive way.

If your confidence is increasing, maybe you're getting good at something, you're practicing a lot, you're having good results.

You could say my confidence is building up.

So there's tons of ways, negative, positive, literal, to use the phrasal verb, to build up.

So definitely put this one into your conversations.

Let's go back to the first phrasal verb I talked about in this lesson, to clam up.

So when you clam up, you kind of freeze, either because of nervousness or just kind of shyness, or you just don't know what's going on.

So you just freeze and you can't really do anything.

It's kind of embarrassing when you clam up.

If you've ever been to a class and you didn't do the homework or the reading and the teacher asks you a question you know, and asks you something about the reading that you didn't do.

This has happened to me back when I was in university.

I would just kind of clam up.

I'd be like, uh, um.

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Can't really talk because I just don't know what's going on and I'm kind of nervous because I realize that the professor or the teacher is going to know I didn't do the reading.

Nobody's perfect.

It happens sometimes.

If you clam up in a conversation, it could be because you're lying and you just...

You feel nervous about lying or maybe just because the English is a bit advanced.

That's why you're learning with me.

I don't want you to clam up or freeze in your conversations.

These first two are misused by English speakers, specifically English learners that are speaking English all of the time.

So the difference is between to figure out versus to find out.

So if you're figuring something out, you're processing some information.

If you're finding something out, it means you're getting new information.

So, for instance, you are going to have a party for your friend and you need to figure out how many people are going to come.

This means you know you need to look at your guest list and maybe look at your text messages or your emails to figure out how many people are going to come.

You're going to process the information that you already have.

Now, maybe you don't know who's coming.

You might say, I need to find out who's coming.

This means you haven't emailed or texted or called anyone yet to ask if they're going to come.

This is going to be new information.

If you're figuring out how many people are going to come, you're going to count up the number of people that have said yes.

I just figured it out.

Find out what?

Find out anything?

Maybe you haven't heard from one of the guests that you invited to a party yet, so you'll text them and you can say i need to find out if they are available to come.

So again, find out is new information, figure out is processing information that we already have.

Sometimes, figure out and find out can be used a bit interchangeably, But for the most part the context is going to be different.

So if you're trying to solve a problem, even if you've never solved the problem before you did not know how to do something you're going to say I need to figure it out.

So maybe your printer is broken.

You're trying to print out some documents.

And it's been broken for a while, but you've also had this printer for a while.

You could say, I need to figure out how to fix this printer.

Or if you fixed it, you can say, I finally figured out how to fix the printer.

Here, we can also say, I'm going to find out how to fix the printer.

And this is maybe meaning that you're going to go find some directions or you're going to find the manual for your printer so that you can figure out how to fix it.

So here, figure out and find out can be used a bit interchangeably.

But if you're going to solve a problem, I would use figure out.

For instance, if your computer is broken or your phone's broken, you might say I need to figure out what's going on with my computer.

I need to figure out what's going on with my phone.

Here using I'm going to find out what's happening with my computer or find out with my phone.

It sounds a bit awkward and it just doesn't make sense in the context here.

It's hard to explain, but when you're solving a problem, use figure out.

That's what native English speakers use.

If you hear some news about a friend, remember.

When we're getting new information we often say we're going to find it out.

So our friend tells us that she is moving away from the country.

You can say, I just found out she's moving.

New information, you found it out.

Maybe if you saw your friend packing up boxes...

You could say, I'm trying to figure out why you're packing up boxes.

This means, you know, you're trying to process the information that you see.

And you can say, oh, I figured out she's moving because she was packing boxes.

So here you process the information or you solve the problem.

But if your friend just says, I'm moving, you could say, oh, I just found out you're moving.

Figure out versus find out.

Make sure you use these correctly, because the context is a bit tricky here and I hear English speakers misuse these two interchangeably all the time.

Let's get started by talking about some phrasal verbs containing the preposition up.

We have pay versus pay up.

When you talk about paying for something, it's simply giving money to cover the cost of something.

For instance, every month you need to pay your rent.

Very simple to use this verb.

Now, have you heard native English speakers say to pay up?

Pay up.

This phrasal verb makes it a bit more forceful.

Like you need to pay up, your rent is due today.

It's saying that your rent is due immediately and it's trying to make someone pay you.

Usually it's being a bit more forceful.

Or if you say, oh, I have to pay up, my rent is due today.

It's talking about that urgency.

It's implying that you don't really want to pay, but you need to do it because it's due right now.

So in this case, the difference between pay and to pay up, it's very small.

But if someone is saying pay up, you better know that that phrasal verb is being forceful.

And it's meaning that you need to immediately pay right now because you owe some money.

And I would say pay up is often used if someone owes you money for rent, or if they owe you money for a bet, or maybe you loaned them money a long time ago anything like that where it's kind of unpleasant to collect but you need the money immediately, right now because they owe you.

Our next phrasal verb we're going to look at is call up.

So if you simply say you're going to call someone, you're either going to shout their name or you're going to call them on the phone.

So just call her up?

Just call her up?

For instance, you might say, I have to call my friend tonight or I have to call my boss later.

Now, if we say call up, the difference again is small, but it's very meaningful.

If you say you're going to call up someone, it means you're going to call them on the phone.

We don't talk about shouting when we're saying call up.

And usually it means you have official or very formal business with the person.

Like, I need to call up my boss tonight.

This is implying that it's a bit more of a formal scheduled phone call.

Or even, instead of just saying I need to call my friend, you could say I need to call up my friend.

This maybe implies that you have a reason that you need to call them rather than just wanting to chat.

Or maybe you need to call them to ask for something or schedule something.

Let's talk about a phrasal verb that's used, I think, almost more than just the simple verb, in this case.

So we have to patch versus patch up.

So when we use the verb to patch, we mean we're going to repair something or cover a hole.

So if you have a hole in your wall, you usually need to patch the hole.

But more commonly, English speakers will say we're going to patch up the hole.

So this can mean to repair.

It's used kind of in the same way as patch.

But also we use patch up to talk about repairing relationships or resolving problems.

Perhaps you have two friends that have been arguing for a long time, so maybe they haven't really been friends in a while, but one day they decide to patch up their relationship by, you know, apologizing and saying they're sorry and such.

So patch up in this situation means to fix a relationship, rather than a hole in the wall or a hole in your clothing.

And one thing to note here is we can't say we're going to patch a relationship.

Someone might know what you're saying in this case, but it sounds a little awkward and it's not how a native speaker would use this verb.

In this case, they would always use the phrasal verb when it comes to talking about repairing relationships.

Catching people up isn't my thing.

Keep versus keep up.

So when you simply use the verb keep, you're always talking about keeping possession of something, maintaining possession.

So I'm going to keep this book that I got from the library for two weeks.

So that means I'm going to have it at my house before I return it.

Or if you give someone something and they say, do you want this back?

Am I just borrowing this?

You might say, no, you can keep it.

It's yours.

That means you get to have it in your possession permanently.

Now, when we add up to this verb, it changes the meaning dramatically.

When you say you're going to keep up with someone, it means you're going to maintain the same pace always or the same speed.

So maybe someone is working next to you and you also want to work as hard as them.

You can say i'm trying to keep up with you.

Or maybe they're explaining something to you and you want to show them that you're trying to understand every step of the way.

You might say oh, i'm keeping up, i understand.

And also when we're walking or running, this phrasal verb is used all the time to say you know, i gotta keep up the same speed.

Hey, can you keep up?

Can we keep going fast?

So we're talking about speed or pace of work a lot when we use the phrasal verb to keep up.

Keep up.

Let's move on to speak versus speak up.

When you say that you want someone to speak, you want them to just say words.

You want them to express their ideas out loud with their voice.

Now, when we say speak up, we are only talking about talking louder.

So if someone's talking and you say, hey, speak up, they'll say, oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't know you couldn't hear me.

So it's literally just asking someone to speak louder when you say speak up, or could you please speak up?

I can't hear you.

One other way that we use speak up is to tell someone that they need to express their feelings.

Even if it's going to be kind of difficult to say your feelings or your opinion in a situation, you might say hey, you might want to speak up if you disagree with them.

This means you might actually want to share your opinion rather than just remaining silent.

So speak up is really mainly used when we're talking about speaking louder or sharing our opinion in a difficult situation.

To pair versus to pair up.

It's very important to understand the difference between these two, because the meaning really changes here.

So to pair means to match two things.

For instance, you might want to say, I paired a sweatshirt with a pair of jeans.

So pair in this case would mean you put them together.

Or oftentimes we say, I'm going to pair these shoes with this pair of pants, whatever it might be.

And even sometimes we talk about putting food together.

So I'm going to pair this cup of wine with this steak.

I mean, you're going to eat them and drink them together.

When we use the phrasal verb to pair up, we're usually talking about two people getting together to accomplish a task or project together.

So if your office manager says hey everyone, pair up and start to work together, this means find one other person to work with.

You can also use pair up. in almost the same way as to pair.

But again, you can't say, hey, pair with someone.

That doesn't sound as natural as pair up with someone.

So that's why we add the up, because we're implying that they need to get together to accomplish a task.

All right, Wildcats, pair up.

To change versus to change up.

This will be our last phrasal verb using the preposition up.

This one is really important.

I could have listed so many phrasal verbs using up, because this is such a common particle in phrasal verbs, but I had to limit my list here because we're gonna move on in a second.

But let's talk about changing versus changing up.

So first, when you change something, you completely swap it out or you completely alter it.

You're making it different.

So if you change your outfit, that means you're wearing different clothes now.

If you say you're going to change up your outfit, that does not mean you're going to change your clothes completely.

You're not going to be wearing a completely different outfit.

It might just mean that you're only going to change one piece of your outfit.

For instance, you might say I'm going to change up my outfit today and wear tennis shoes instead of high heels.

So you're just changing one thing about your outfit, or I'm going to change it up today and I'm going to put my hair up up instead of down.

You're not really changing your hair that dramatically in this case.

You're just kind of doing a slightly different style.

Or maybe, if you like to exercise and you typically do the same workout, maybe if you add in something different, you say i'm going to change up my workout a little bit today and i'm going to lift weights instead of just running.

So you're still exercising, but you might just do something to add some variety, which is also another way that we use change up to mean that we're just going to add something a little different, a little bit of variety to make things interesting.

If you're playing a game and you want to slightly change the rules, this is when we would say change up, so i'm going to change up the rules a little bit.

This means that you're not going to change the game completely, but you're going to maybe just change something small.

You're going to tweak something small to make the game either more difficult or more fun.

Good, Now change up.

Let's start off with some everyday actions.

Do you put off studying or do you do it right away?

If you use the phrasal verb to put off, it means delay until later.

So if you're somebody that procrastinates, you put off a lot of things.

Don't put it off.

Let's talk about what it means to take off.

Now, normally taking something would be getting it into your possession or just physically grabbing it.

When we say take off, it's usually removing.

So if you take off your clothes, you're removing your clothes and you'll be naked.

Another very common way that this phrasal verb is used is when it's time for your plane to actually fly into the sky.

We call that the takeoff, the takeoff time.

So usually when you go to the airport, your ticket has a boarding time and a takeoff time.

And the takeoff time is when the plane actually leaves and goes into the sky.

Oh, it's too tight.

Take it off, take it off, take it off.

Let's talk about the difference between running and running out of something.

So obviously running is an action, but when we say we ran out of something, it means we have no more of the thing left.

I think about the worst thing being to running out of toilet paper.

That means you have no toilet paper left in your house and you definitely need to go to the store and buy some more if you run out of toilet paper.

For some reason, it seems to be a very American thing to fear running out of toilet paper.

Whenever there is a bad weather event, like a hurricane or a big snowstorm or something like a pandemic, people go to the store.

They flock to the store, meaning a lot of people go at one time and they all buy toilet paper here because they are afraid of running out of it or having none left.

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Now, obviously when you turn, it means you change your direction.

But when you talk about turning up something, it means either increasing the volume or increasing the intensity of something.

Can you turn up the volume?

Can you turn up the music?

That would mean increasing the sound, making it louder.

We also occasionally use turn up in the same way as we use show up.

So if you want to say that she came to the party late, you can say she turned up at the party late, which means she arrived or showed up.

Pick up.

If we pick up our house, it means the exact same thing as cleaning or tidying our house.

We can also use this phrasal verb to say that we are going to go get something.

I'm going to go pick up my friend at 7 o'clock.

Or I need to go pick up my pizza from the store.

I just ordered a pizza.

It means you need to drive there or go there and get something.

Pick them up.

Lace up.

A lace is a string.

So when you lace up something, you tie it up or you tie it together with a string.

The most common way that we use this phrasal verb is we say we want to lace up our shoes, which means we're going to tie our shoes, maybe because we're going for a run or we're going to be doing some sort of activity.

Hike up.

When you hike up something, you raise it significantly and quickly.

We typically use hike up when we're talking about a rate, so a number or a price.

For instance, in the United States, the price of meat has really been hiked up in the last year.

It's very expensive right now to buy beef, chicken or pork.

Set up.

When you set up something, you arrange, assemble, or organize it.

For instance, recently I had a party and my friends asked me if they needed to come early to help me set up the party.

So that means putting out food, getting the drinks ready, getting balloons ready.

Things like that were what we needed to set up. for the party.

If you're organizing something and getting it ready, you can say I'm going to set up this game for the children.

That means you're going to get it ready so that as soon as the children come they can play the game.

Clear up.

When you clear up an area, typically we're talking about a smaller area.

If it's a bigger area, we do just say clean up.

But to clear up an area would mean to remove clutter or junk from a space.

So for instance, you could say I'm going to clear up my desk so that I can get to work.

You can also clear up confusion.

This means that you make your idea more clear or understandable to someone by giving a better explanation.

So in this video, I'm trying to clear up all of these phrasal verbs.

And if some of them are not cleared up for you, make sure you use the link in the description so you can download the free PDF and get it emailed to your inbox.

Wrap up.

When you wrap up an event or a meeting, it means you're finishing everything so that it can be over, or you can wrap up a project by doing the last steps to finish the project.

If you are in a meeting, in a business meeting especially, you can say let's wrap up the meeting by just summarizing what we talked about and then we'll talk to you later.

That would be the end of the meeting.

Also, you can use wrap up to simply mean cover something with cloth or to wrap it up with paper.

So for presents.

In the United States we almost always wrap up our presents in what we call wrapping paper so that the person can open it and have a good surprise.

Work up.

When you work up something, it means you're generating something.

We typically use this phrasal verb to say we're going to work up an appetite, we're going to work up enthusiasm, or we're going to work up a sweat, which would mean we're getting really tired and hot.

Or if you're laying in bed and you just feel really lazy, you could say I need to work up the energy to go clean the house.

This means that you just kind of need to motivate yourself and find energy to get up out of bed.

And if you're scrolling on your phone or just watching Netflix, it can be kind of hard to work up the energy to clean.

Turn up.

So if someone or something turns up, it's found unexpectedly or by chance.

So typically it means you weren't looking for them, but they just come out of nowhere.

Or you lost something a long time ago but it turns up months later because you just happened to look in a place that you weren't looking before.

Have you ever lost something in your house and it turns up in your refrigerator?

I'm talking about losing your car keys, and typically, why would you put your car keys in a refrigerator?

Maybe you're just having a weird day and you had just no mental power going and your keys ended up in your refrigerator.

That's where they turn up when you open it.

And, of course, a really common way to use turn up, which is more literal, is when we're talking about the volume or the intensity of something.

If you can't hear the music in the car, you might ask someone to turn up the volume or you'll say can you turn up the music?

This means, can you make it louder?

Run up.

When you run up a bill or an expense, it means you accumulate the amount of money that you own.

So if you go to a restaurant and you order a ton of food and drinks, you may say that you ran up a really high bill at the restaurant.

Or if it's very cold.

If you have a cold winter in the United States, you'll want to turn your heat up, so you'll run up a very large heating bill trying to keep your house warm.

We can also use run up to mean physically running up a hill or mountain or whatever it might be.

I'm going to run up the stairs really quick.

This next phrasal verb is crucial for you to understand while you're speaking English.

If someone says that they want to get ahead, do you know exactly what they're talking about?

You work hard, you get ahead.

When people are young, before they have families, before they have kids, they try to get ahead in their careers by working long hours.

So to get ahead means make improvement and get above other people in their career field.

This phrase is almost exclusively used when we're talking about jobs or careers, or money and success.

You might say, I'm trying to get ahead on my bills.

This means you're trying to save money so that you can pay off all of your expenses and not feel like you're always living paycheck to paycheck, which is another phrase I'll teach you now.

If you live paycheck to paycheck, it just means that you have no extra money at the end of your paycheck and to spend on fun things or to save.

You're just always waiting for the next paycheck so that you can pay off your expenses.

So if you're trying to get ahead, it means maybe you're working extra, or you're trying to earn extra money to be more successful or to have some savings so that you can improve your life.

This phrase is all about improving our lives and trying to succeed.

In life, I really try to be self-sufficient.

This means I try to do things myself.

I try to fix things myself and I try to build things myself.

But sometimes, especially when it comes to like plumbing problems or electrical problems in my house, I need a plumber or an electrician, somebody that knows what they're doing, an expert.

And it's hard sometimes to find a person that's really good at doing this.

You know, they have good service.

So I'll ask around my neighborhood and my friends to see if they know anyone that would be good for the job at my house.

The phrasal verb to ask around.

It means to ask multiple people for advice or information, especially if you're trying to find, you know, the right piece of information or a recommendation that is going to work for your situation.

Ask around about me.

Maybe in a workplace you might be looking for a piece of information to solve a problem and nobody around you really knows the answer.

So you know, a friend or a colleague might say hey, I'll ask around to other departments in the workplace here to figure it out.

So this just means they're going to go around and try to ask different people for the information that you need.

Let's move on to some phrasal verbs containing out.

The first one is bail out.

If you bail out someone or something, you rescue them from a difficult situation.

A huge part of economic history recently in the United States was in 2008, when the government had to bail out the big banks.

The banks were about to fail, so they gave them a lot of money to bail them out, to keep them from failing, because it would have been bad for the economy, supposedly.

I'm not an expert, so don't shoot the messenger here.

And when you give someone money so that they avoid failure, you're bailing them out.

We can also use bail out to mean that we're going to leave suddenly.

Maybe you're at an event or at a party and you just really need to go.

You say, sorry, hey, we're going to bail out real quick.

This just means we're going to leave suddenly. quickly.

And oftentimes it's not expected that that's when you will leave if you use this phrase.

So it just means like we have to go pretty suddenly.

Maybe there's an emergency or just some sort of situation where you can't stay.

Now, I hope you never need to be bailed out of jail.

In the United States if someone is eligible for bail means they committed a crime.

They're sitting in jail awaiting their court hearing.

We can pay a certain amount of money or get a loan for a certain amount of money to get them out of jail, and that's called bailing someone out.

To carry out.

This phrasal verb is quite common in more formal English, but it can be used in a lot of different situations, just like any phrasal verb on this list.

If you're going to carry something out, you're going to do it according to plan or you're going to follow the instructions.

Everyone carries out his duty.

A lot of times in science, we say we are going to carry out an experiment.

It means we're going to complete it.

We're going to do all the tasks and the experiment to complete it.

And oftentimes we'll say we're going to carry out the instructions.

This means we're going to follow the instructions very carefully.

Do you know what it means to cross out?

So if you cross something out, you take a pen and you cross it out, you draw an X or you scribble upon it.

Typically we're crossing something out.

If we are having a to-do list and we've done it, we cross it out.

Or if it's information that's incorrect, maybe we'll say I just crossed out that information because it was incorrect.

So if you tell someone to cross out something, it means either draw an X through it, a line through it, or remove it completely.

So this is a quite literal phrasal verb.

To drop out.

So if somebody leaves either an activity, a course, a race or a school before finishing, whatever it might be, we can say that they dropped out.

Oftentimes, when people quit during some sort of running race or any sort of race at all or competition, we can say they dropped out of the race or they dropped out of the competition.

And then probably the most common way, I would think, this phrasal verb is used is when we say people have dropped out of school, or they dropped out of college even.

This means they quit, you know, in the middle of their program before finishing.

It's kind of a negative thing to drop out of.

No, I dropped out.

You dropped out?

Let's move on to some phrasal verbs containing on.

We use focus most commonly with on.

We can call someone focused if they're really paying attention either to their work or to their goals, but oftentimes we say we're focused on something.

Maybe you're trying to be happier in your life.

So you'll say, I'm focusing on positive things.

This means you're not paying attention to the bad things going on in your life.

Or you might give somebody the advice, don't focus on the negative things in your situation.

You know, it will make you sad.

It will make you sad, think that your life is bad if you don't focus on the positive things.

So it's to give your attention, or to pay attention to something in particular when we use the phrasal verb focus on honey focus focus, focus.

A lot of times i have a hard time if i'm working in my house on focusing on work, because I start cleaning, I start organizing.

It's kind of like I'm procrastinating a little bit, but I'm doing things that are productive at the same time.

So a lot of times I go to a coffee shop or a library when I need to focus on my work.

A lot of times in movies or in television shows, we hear the phrase, pick on, pick on.

We hear people say, pick on someone your own size.

This means don't criticize someone, bully someone unfairly, especially if they're smaller or weaker than you.

Doesn't have to mean literally the same size, but like just weaker in general.

If you see a bunch of kids picking on a little kid, it means they're bullying.

Maybe they're taking their stuff.

They're being really mean.

They're picking on them.

Sometimes in the United States, if people are rude and mean and they make fun of your foreign accent, you could say can you stop picking on my accent please?

And hopefully they listen and hopefully you've never been in this situation, but it does happen.

Sometimes I've been in classes or meetings where the teacher professor boss, whoever it might be asks you a lot of questions and you know they're kind of making you speak a lot in front of everyone and they can say sorry to pick on you.

I just want to hear your answers.

So it means they're literally picking you to speak.

And at the same time it might be perceived as kind of mean to keep.

You know targeting you, but they're apologizing.

Sorry to pick on you or I'm not trying to pick on you.

It means I'm not trying to single you out or bully you.

Now we're going to move on to some phrasal verbs that contain out.

First, let's talk about to speak versus to speak out out.

So obviously, to speak we already talked about it it means just to use your voice to say what you're thinking, say an idea.

If you speak out on something, it means you disagree or you talk about something that's very important.

Let me give you a couple examples here, So you can speak out on an important political issue that maybe a lot of people are going to disagree with you on, but you're speaking out because you think it's what's right, even if it's difficult to have others agree with you.

Or maybe something at work isn't going well.

Maybe you're not being treated fairly.

So maybe you need to speak out and say what's happening, because it's going to benefit everyone else if you speak out or talk about the issue or bring it to somebody's attention.

Speak out.

Here's one that often confuses english learners.

So we're talking about to give versus to give out.

If we give something, it means, you know, we just hand it to another person.

Then when we say we're going to give out something or we're going to give out a lot of things, it means we're going to hand them for free, usually to multiple people.

So if you say they're giving out free food, it means they're giving it to everyone.

Or if you say the teacher is going to give out the test on Monday, it means she's going to, you know, hand out the test to everybody in the class.

One phrasal verb that's a little bit similar but a little bit different here is to give away.

When we say we're going to give away something, it means we're going to just give it to someone for free, because usually we don't need it anymore.

Or if we say that they're doing a giveaway, it means they're giving out a prize or some sort of valuable thing.

We can't give it out.

To die versus to die out.

So obviously to die means to pass away, to perish to.

You know, go into the light, whatever you might think about dying.

Now, when we say something is dying out, we're not talking about someone actually dying.

We're talking about something gradually disappearing.

For instance, there are a lot of languages that are just dying out because maybe people don't speak them a lot anymore.

For instance, Some people say Latin is a dead language because no one actually speaks it in their everyday life anymore.

So Latin is dying out.

Or if there's an animal that's slowly becoming extinct.

Many years ago, people would say lions are dying out because, you know, maybe they were being poached or their habitat was in danger.

So that means the species is slowly going away.

The animal is slowly going away.

It's dying out.

So that's the difference between to die and to die out.

So you definitely don't want to confuse these two next phrasal verb and verb.

So to drown means to you know, in the water you can't swim and you can't breathe, and you're about to die in the water because you can't get to the top.

Or maybe if you're in the ocean and you get stuck underwater, you'd be drowning.

When we say to drown out, it is quite different in meaning.

If we're going to drown out noise, it means we don't want to hear that noise.

So we turn on something louder in order to make it so we can't hear something that's annoying us or, you know, keeping us awake or whatever it might be.

A lot of times people turn on a fan at night to drown out any noise that might wake them up.

Or for young babies.

Sometimes we turn on a sound machine to drown out other noises in the house because we don't want them to get startled and wake up.

If you are at a restaurant or at a party and you can't hear the person you're talking to, you could say the music is drowning out our conversation.

So that means you can't hear what the other person's saying because the music is so loud it's drowning it out.

So drown out is a very useful phrasal verb and you need to know how it differs from just saying to drown.

To drown out your snoring!

A few phrasal verbs that will be useful for work and study.

To go over.

To go over a topic or a subject means to review it.

So oftentimes before a test, you want to go over the notes that you took.

Instead of saying review, people say go over or can you go over that topic one more time?

This just means maybe it was a bit confusing and you need them to review it.

Work out is most commonly used in two situations either to physically exercise I'm going to go work out at the gym or I'm going to go work out outside.

It means you're going to exercise.

Typically, we're talking about either running or lifting weights in this situation, or we could say oh, that cleaning was a big workout.

That means it was a lot of exercise.

We also use the phrasal verb work out to mean that we're going to solve a problem.

Let me think about how I can work out this problem or hopefully this problem works out.

This means it's going to be solved.

I'm working out.

Now we're going to go over or review.

A list of phrasal verbs that contain the word over, just like go over, which means to review.

Hand over.

When someone hands over something, they physically give it to someone else.

So if you are in a situation where someone is robbing you, they'll say, hand over all your money.

This means give me all your money or hand it over.

But sometimes this phrasal verb is used to transition as well.

So if you're in a business meeting, you might say I'm going to hand over the conversation to you, Kayla.

And this means that they were speaking, but now it's your turn to be in control of the conversation.

So hand over can mean physically hand over something, or it can mean to just transfer power or transfer control to someone.

To hand over the power.

Knock over.

When you knock over something, you unintentionally or intentionally cause it to fall or be pushed.

One time I went to my cousin's party and I sat down and I immediately knocked over a drink.

I was so embarrassed.

So it was actually an accident.

I just moved my elbow the wrong way and somebody's drink was on the table next to me and it knocked over.

Look over.

When you look over something, you examine it, you review it or you inspect it, but you do it pretty casually or quickly.

So your teacher might say to you, everybody look over your notes and then we will take the test.

This just means that they're going to give you a few minutes before the test to just look at your notes very quickly, just to review in your head.

But it's not going to be a long time.

Or you might ask someone if they could look over something that you've been working on to see if there are any errors that are very blaring to them.

So it would be like a big error, but they're not going to look at it very, very in depth or very thoroughly.

They're just looking it over quickly.

Run over.

There are two pretty common ways to use this phrasal verb, run over.

So if you run over something, it typically is meaning that you are in a car and you hit or go over the thing.

So you could run over an animal with your car, which would be very sad.

Or maybe you could run over the grass, which means you actually drive through the grass in somebody's yard.

In the United States we call holes in the road potholes, and you do not want to run over a pothole because you could get a flat tire.

Another way that we use run over is very similar to look over.

It just means to do something very quickly, just to practice it or just look through it really quickly.

So you could run over your presentation before having to give it to an audience.

This just means you practice it very quickly, maybe in your head or maybe just out loud, but you're not giving the actual presentation stop over.

When you're saying that you're going to stop over somewhere, it means you're going to stop very briefly, And sometimes it means it's actually unplanned.

You could say, hey, stop over at my house real quick too.

This just means you weren't planning on it, but you should come over and see me for just a brief moment of time.

Turnover.

When you turn over an object, you turn it to the opposite side as it was facing before.

You can also use turnover to describe change of power.

So if there is a business or a workplace and people quit and leave and then they hire new people, very frequently we often say there is a lot of turnover in that restaurant or there is a lot of turnover in that business.

Or when you buy a house or move into a new house and now is going to be your house, the landlord or the previous owners will turn over the keys to you.

That means the keys to the house are now your responsibility because now it's your house.

Sleepover.

When you sleep over, it just means that you stay the night at someone's house.

And when we're kids here in the United States, we say we're going to have a sleepover with our friends, when we're staying at their house for one night.

If you want to tell someone that they can stay at your house, you can say that they can sleep over for a night or they can sleep over for a week.

This just means that you have room to have them sleeping in your house and staying at your house.

Takeover.

When you take over something, it means you're taking, Taking or gaining control or responsibility of something from someone else.

So, for instance, when there's a new president, they take over the White House in the United States.

This is the place where the president lives and they take over all of the power, too.

Now in the United States, we vote for our president, but if someone were to just come into the government and take the power without being elected or voted for, it would be a takeover of the government.

Makeover.

Makeover is used to say that you are going to make someone or something look much better than they did before.

Extreme Home Makeover.

If you give a person a makeover, typically you just give them new clothes, maybe a nice haircut.

You change some things about their appearance to give them a makeover, make them look better.

Go over.

When you go over something, you're reviewing a process, or you're examining something or checking something.

So, for instance, usually when people have weddings here in the United States, there's a plan for the whole day and the bride and groom go over it together.

That means they look at it together and they make sure that they have all the people and all the things necessary for their wedding or their big party.

Or if you want to ask your teacher to review some sort of concept with you that they taught you, could raise your hand and say hey, could you go over what you just taught us?

Instead of just saying that we're going to present something or we're going to explain something, native English speakers will often say we're going to lay out data or we're going to lay out the problem.

And this is just used to replace the phrase to explain it.

We're going to lay it out for you.

And when we use this phrase, it's often used because we're trying to break it down very simply for the person, because we really want them to understand.

So I'm just going to lay this right out.

In this phrase, it's very blunt.

So let's say you are talking to your boss at work and you are trying to explain to them why you deserve more money, why you deserve a raise.

And you give them all the justifications, all the reasons, all the examples of your hard work and success.

And at the end, they still seem unconvinced.

So you might say, let me lay it out for you.

Without me, this company would not be successful.

So it's kind of like at the end of explaining things, you're trying to make one last simple point by saying let me lay it out for you.

This just means let me explain it to you.

And let me explain it to you in the most simplest terms I can explain it.

Okay, let's focus on two more phrasal verbs that contain in.

The first one is to butt in.

If someone butts in your conversation, or you could say they butt in on your business, it means they either interrupt or they try to, you know, get into your business, your conversations, in a rude way.

So if someone's butting in, it's considered rude.

We use this phrasal verb when someone is acting rude and interrupting.

Did you just butt in on the investigative team again?

Now, we use cut in in a similar way, but I would say it's less harsh language here.

It's a bit softer.

You could say hey, I'm sorry to cut in on your conversation, but I had an idea or I had something to add.

You know, a lot of times if we're saying that we're going to butt in or cut in, we're apologizing.

I'm sorry to butt in on you guys.

This means I'm sorry to interrupt.

I'm not trying to be rude.

If somebody interrupts a dance between a man and a woman and says, oh, could I cut in?

You know, could I dance with this girl?

We use the phrase over here, cut in.

They're kind of interrupting.

One other way that we say cut in is in traffic when our car is merging into a lane of other cars.

Now, don't confuse this with cut off.

Cut off would mean you suddenly cut in front of someone else's car, causing them to stop and almost hit you.

And it often causes what we call road rage or, you know, people getting really angry in traffic situations if somebody cuts you off.

But we're talking about cutting in.

We'll say cut into this lane.

It means you gradually merge into the lane in a legal and good way.

So the next phrasal verb when we are giving something to either a teacher, a boss or any sort of authority, we say that we are handing it in.

Hand in.

So your boss might say, hey, could you hand in that report by Friday?

That means could you email it to me?

Could you give it to me by Friday?

Whatever the report is.

Or if you're in a classroom, the teacher might say, hey, it's time to hand in your test.

If you have a piece of paper, a physical test, you need to give it to them.

Another common way we use this if we are quitting a job, we need to hand in a resignation letter.

It means the same as submit or turn in.

But a lot of times it's talking about giving it to an authority, a TAS or teacher, as I said before.

Let's move on to a couple phrasal verbs containing off.

So first we have call off.

Call off is a very simple phrasal verb that's really natural and commonly used to say that we're going to cancel an event.

Typically, we call off an event because of bad weather.

No, I'm calling off the wedding.

If you are going to some sort of sporting event or a wedding and it's raining and thundering and lightning outside, it's probably going to get called off, which means canceled.

Then let's go back to that phrasal verb, cut off.

So remember cut off.

We can use in traffic, but we can also just talk about isolating someone or stopping something suddenly.

So if I'm cutting off contact with someone, it means I'm not going to speak with them anymore.

Maybe they have done something that has deeply offended me, or I'm very angry at them, or I just don't want to be associated with them.

I'm just cutting them off.

Or if we're going to stop giving money to someone that we have been giving money to them for a while.

Maybe it's a kid or a parent or.

Maybe it's just a friend that you've been helping out.

You could say, I'm sorry, I have to cut you off.

I can't give you money anymore.

It just means that you're, you know, immediately stopping.

Or you could say that they are cut off from society.

This means they don't talk to people.

They're very isolated.

Lots of ways to use this phrasal verb, cut off.

And you could simply just say I'm going to cut off my hair, which means you're going to cut your hair very, very short.

Cut it off to drop versus to drop behind, so these two have very different meanings as well.

If you drop something, you simply let it fall or fall to the floor.

So like i dropped my pencil, i dropped my pen, or i hate when i drop my phone, If you say that you're going to drop behind, it means you are going to be behind in progress.

A really common example is if a student is not really understanding the class and they're not really putting in work, they're going to drop behind.

Another phrasal verb that means the exact same thing is to fall behind.

So here it would be to fall versus to fall behind.

It means you're going to lose progress or you're not going to be as far as the rest of everyone else.

So this is used a lot of times in school.

You could just be talking about life in general, like, I don't want to drop behind my friends.

You know, all my friends are getting married and having kids.

And, you know, I'm just working my job and I can't find someone to marry or whatever it might be.

So it just means you're falling behind in progress if you fall behind or drop behind.

Let's move on to some phrasal verbs containing off.

So to drift versus to drift off.

If you talk about something drifting, it's slowly moving and it doesn't really have any control.

We're talking about drifting usually when it comes to something in the water.

So if a boat is just drifting, it means it doesn't have an anchor down and it doesn't have the motor going.

It's just floating along and nobody's controlling it.

When we use drift off, we are talking about falling asleep here.

So again, the off in this phrasal verb really changes the meaning here.

So if we say I was reading last night and I drifted off while I had my book open, it means you fell asleep while you were reading.

Or I like to drift off to a podcast every night.

This means I like to fall asleep while I'm listening to a podcast.

So it means, you know, slowly fall asleep when you say you're going to drift off.

A lot of times little kids, when they're very tired, they'll drift off doing the funniest things.

Like they'll drift off while they're eating, or they'll drift off while they, you know, have a sucker in their mouth or something just insane, because they just get so tired and they don't like to go to sleep because they're just having so much fun.

Now you wait for her to drift off.

So this next one is not only a phrasal verb, but it's also a really good slang term.

So to go versus to go off.

You probably learned the verb to go as one of the first verbs you learned in English.

It means to leave or to move.

When we talk about to go off, it can mean it can start to make a loud noise.

For instance, my alarm clock is going off, or my car alarm is going off, or the fire alarm is going off.

It means it's starting to make a really loud noise or alert.

But this is also a slang term that's actually used quite frequently now.

If we say that somebody is going off on another person, it means they are yelling at them.

They are sharing a piece of their mind.

There's an idiom for you.

You know, they're telling them why they're angry or why they are wrong.

So in the past tense, we could say that they went off on them.

Or again, our alarm went off.

Go off, went off.

To rip versus to rip off.

If you rip something... Men need a store that has the right thing for their thing.

Like a Kenneth Cole suit made with Showflex fabric to keep them cool at their cousin-in-law's third wedding in the middle of July.

Whatever the thing, Men's Warehouse has the clothes for it.

Love the way you look?

Men's Warehouse.

You're simply going to tear it apart.

Now, if you rip off someone, it means you scam them or you did something that was kind of unfair.

So if you buy a gold watch from a store and you get home and the gold starts to scratch off and you learn it wasn't real gold, it was just paint, but you paid the price of a real gold watch.

Well, you just got scammed and you could also say that you got ripped off.

Maybe you go to mcdonald's and they forget to give you half your food.

You could say oh, they ripped me off.

I didn't even get half my food, so of course it's a mistake.

You can probably go back and they'll give it to you.

But you could also say i got ripped off.

I did not get what i paid for.

Oh nothing, Rip off.

It's important to learn some more frail verbs for emotions and reacting to things and how to express these.

So let's talk about cheering up someone.

If you cheer up someone, it means you make them happy.

Oftentimes, if someone is feeling sad and you just want them to instantly feel better, you might simply say oh, cheer up, it's okay.

That means just feel a little happier, feel better.

Or I got you this ice cream to cheer you up.

I got it to make you happy.

Although these next two phrasal verbs sound alike, they mean two completely different things.

Let's talk about what it means to look after versus to look into.

So when you're looking after something or someone, you're caring about it.

For instance, you're looking after kids, you're looking after an animal, you're looking after your garden.

You're caring about these things.

You're taking care of them.

Looking into something means you're investigating it or you're finding out new information about it.

He looks after me.

If you have a younger brother or younger sister.

When you were younger you might say I used to look after my brother.

I used to look after my sister.

This means you took care of them as a child.

Now, when we say we're looking into something, we can mean we're going to seriously investigate it or research it.

Or a lot of times we use this phrasal verb in a really casual manner to say like oh yeah, maybe I'll think about that later.

Especially when someone says, oh, have you ever tried this?

You might say, oh, I'll look into it.

This can sometimes mean you will actually, you know, research it later.

Or sometimes it means that, you know, it's you probably won't get to it.

But thanks for the suggestion.

So there's context here.

And we don't always say to someone, you know, oh, I don't really care about that.

But a lot of times just to be kind, say, oh, I'll look into that.

The other day my friend was talking to me about some new chicken sausages that she bought from Costco because she said you know they're high in protein.

They're pretty healthy.

I'll say, oh, I'll look into that.

So that means, you know, maybe if I'm there, I'll look for them.

I'll see if they look good.

But you know, it's kind of just thanking them for the suggestion, thanking them for the information, saying you're going to research it or look at that information later.

So these two phrasal verbs, completely different.

Do not use them interchangeably.

The next two phrasal verbs are, again, pretty similar and very, very confusing to English learners.

So we're talking about taking over something versus taking on something.

Both of these phrasal verbs can refer to responsibilities or to jobs.

So if you take over something, you are assuming all of the control of it.

You're taking it completely.

Now, if you're taking on something, it usually means that you're going to try to have a responsibility or try to have a new job.

Okay, Serge, take over.

Take over.

Take on what?

And typically you're not controlling it completely if you say you're going to take it on.

Typically we use take on when we are accepting responsibility or accepting a task.

So if you say I'm going to take over the project, it means you're gonna tell everyone you know, stop working on this project.

It's my project now.

I will control it.

I will do all the work.

If you say I am going to take on this project, it means maybe no one was really willing to do it.

Or somebody asks you hey, can you get this done?

And you say, yes, I can do it.

You're taking it on, you're accepting it.

So that's why you can't use take over and take on in the same way, because take over it's a bit more aggressive.

It's saying, I'm controlling this, I'm in charge, I'm the boss.

To take on, it just means like, yes, I can do it.

You're typically responding to someone when you say, I can take on this responsibility.

These next two phrasal verbs are probably the trickiest in our lesson today.

They are both talking about an end result or something that happens in the end.

That's surprising, but they are definitely used differently.

So we're going to talk about turns out versus ends up.

Do you know these phrasal verbs?

Have you used them?

I'm going to teach you now how to use them.

So let's start out with turns out.

Turns out usually is talking about a positive result in the end.

And this could turn out well.

So there's three typical ways that we use the phrasal verb turns out.

We can say it turns out in an adjective.

It turns out it was hot.

Or you can use it as a noun.

It turned out to be a great show.

Or you can use a that clause.

So you can say, it turns out that she was telling the truth.

So we're talking about things that were results in the end that were typically kind of surprising and surprisingly positive.

So the phrase it turns out that she was telling the truth, or it turned out that he was telling the truth.

This is a common phrase that we use when we think that someone was lying, but we were surprised that they were actually telling the truth.

So it's a positive thing.

Oftentimes, if you think the weather is going to be bad, or you think it's going to be raining and you're surprised, you'll use this phrase it turns out that it was a beautiful day, or it turns out that it was great weather.

So when we use turn out, we're talking about the end result, typically positive, or we're talking about how a situation became more clear in the end.

Like it turns out she was telling the truth.

So when we use end up, it's pretty similar.

We're talking about how someone finishes a situation.

And a lot of times, again, it's surprising.

End up can be used in a more negative way.

It can be used in a positive way as well, but typically more negative.

You'll always end up winning.

So a really common way to use end up is we say we ended up going.

We ended up going somewhere that we weren't expecting.

So maybe you have plans to go to a Chinese restaurant, but the restaurant was so busy that you ended up going to a different restaurant or you ended up going to a Mexican restaurant instead.

So here the result in the end, ended up, was different than what you expected.

And here it's kind of neutral.

You know, maybe you like Mexican food better or maybe you don't like Mexican food better.

We don't know by the context here, but it's pretty neutral.

It's not a negative thing to go to a different restaurant.

Maybe it's kind of seen as a negative thing that you had to change your plan.

A lot of people go to college and study to do a job and they end up graduating and doing a completely different job.

So here we would use the phrase end up.

He went to school to be an engineer, but he ended up being an Uber driver instead.

So here it's kind of seen as a negative thing when you've put in all this work to study to be an engineer to end up just doing a job where you're driving and you didn't actually need to go to school or college to do it.

If you're traveling and your luggage gets lost by the airline.

You could say our luggage ended up getting lost and we had to buy new clothes when we arrived at our destination.

So here, the end result ended up as a negative situation.

So when we use end up, it's often you know a situation that ended in an accident or something surprising.

That's kind of neutral.

And when we use turn out, it's usually a positive result that again was surprising or unexpected.

And sometimes it can just mean things became clear or we started to understand them more in the end of the situation.

The next set of phrasal verbs all deal with the word under.

The first two I want to talk about are come under and fall under.

Both of these phrasal verbs are used to say that something can be categorized in a certain category or in a type of list.

And there are some really common phrases that use these two phrasal verbs.

You can come under scrutiny.

This means that something that you're doing is going to be categorized as controversial or kind of questionable.

So it's going to be scrutinized or looked at very closely to see if it's wrong.

Whenever the President of the United States passes a new law or approves a new law, they come under scrutiny, because some people don't like what they do.

You can also say that something will fall under scrutiny.

You can also use fall under to mean that it's going to be categorized a certain way.

Let me give you another example.

Some people think that cucumbers are a vegetable, but they actually fall under fruits because they have seeds in them.

So that means that the food cucumber falls under the category fruit, or it's in that category and not vegetables?

Put under.

If someone or something is put under, it means it's placed in a certain state or it's influenced by either a drug or a substance.

Two years ago, I broke my arm and I had to be put under general anesthesia.

So this would be medications that make you sick.

Sleep for surgery.

Sometimes in the United States, we just say that we have to be put under for surgery.

This means put under for general anesthesia, but we just cut that second half of the sentence off.

We just say we have to be put under.

Go under.

When you go under, we typically talk about going underwater.

So a person or a thing will go under the surface of the water.

Now, go under can also mean to fail.

If a business goes under, it means they have no more money left to operate or be open anymore.

In 2008 in the United States, many of the banks went under.

That means they failed as banks and they ran out of money.

Now let's move on to some really important phrasal verbs that include the word through.

Pass through.

When you pass through something, you briefly see it or you briefly stop in this place.

When you travel in the United States by car on a long road trip, you'll pass through many, many small towns that have small restaurants and shops, but oftentimes you'll just pass through.

You won't stop for a long time.

Break through.

The most common way that breakthrough is used as a phrasal verb is to mean you pass through an obstacle or a barrier.

You're finally able to go to something after breaking through it.

In the wintertime, we say we break through the ice.

If we walk on ice and our feet go through it to the water.

If you are in a crowd of people, you might say I had to break through the crowd in order to get inside here.

Now, breakthrough is commonly used as a noun to mean something that was a huge accomplishment that helped advance a field, especially the scientific field.

For instance, penicillin was a huge breakthrough in medicine.

It helped cure a lot of different diseases and ailments.

When you use breakthrough as a phrasal verb, it can mean that your hard work has helped you achieve something.

So we finally broke through the top 100 of the rankings.

That means we worked so hard in something maybe it's chess, a different sport or in your business that you are ranked now in the top 100.

You're breaking through and you're making progress.

Fall through.

When something falls through, it fails to happen even though you had an arrangement or an agreement already in place.

It just doesn't happen for some reason.

Oftentimes, I will call a friend and say, hey, what are you doing?

And they'll say maybe oh, I thought you were busy today or I thought you had plans with so-and-so your friend.

And I'll say, oh, our plans actually fell through.

They were busy or something came up, fell through.

What do you want to do today?

So that means I had plans but they fell through, meaning they did not happen for some reason, and now I'm available.

Or oftentimes in business.

If there is an agreement between two people that you're going to get a deal done, but then something happens and it can't happen anymore because one person you know went back on their agreement, you can say our deal fell through.

It means it did not happen.

Get through.

When you get through something, you successfully achieve a goal or you achieve progress through something with some hard work and some challenges.

For many people in the United States.

They have to get through college by working very hard, because it's financially very hard to go to college if your family doesn't have a lot of money or if you don't have a lot of money.

So some people will get through college by working multiple jobs at one time.

And that's just so they can pay for their living.

They can pay for the tuition at the school and the books that they'll need.

To go through it.

When you go through with something, it means you carry out a plan or some actions, even though there might be some doubt or some insecurities of actually doing the thing.

For instance, maybe you have a bad day at work and you say, I'm going to quit tomorrow.

This job is terrible.

It is ruining my life.

And the next day you actually quit.

Your friend says, did you really quit your job today?

And you said, yes.

They'll say, I did not think that you would go through with it.

This means I didn't believe you would actually do it, because quitting a job is so risky, especially if you don't already have another job.

Pull through.

If you pull through something, it means you survived or you recovered from a serious health event like an illness, a heart attack or an accident.

For instance, my friend's dog was hit by a car and they thought it was going to die, but then it pulled through.

It actually lived and survived the accident.

You can also use this phrasal verb if someone does something that you did not think they would be able to do successfully and it's really helpful that they did it.

So you could say hey, I didn't think that my friend would bring food to the dinner tonight, but they really pulled through and they brought a ton of food for us.

So this means that you were surprised at how helpful they were, or they were able to do something that was kind of difficult bring all the food to the party.

One really good phrasal verb that's used very commonly is when we're trying to get into a program or get into a school.

This means you are trying to be accepted.

Oftentimes people, when they're trying to get a master's degree or even a PhD you know more education they say I am trying to get into a master's program or I'm trying to get into a PhD program.

This means you're doing lots of applying and Working on your resume a lot when I get into Princeton.

I'm never coming back.

If you're ready for college and you get rejected from a college, you might say I did not get into the school I applied for.

So really this phrase to get into things.

It's used to talk about university programs or any sort of training program, but we don't say I'm going to get into this job.

This is usually a different scenario.

You wouldn't use this phrase here.

Only when we're talking about academic programs or any sort of training programs.

There's two phrases here that I want you to be aware of that English speakers use all the time to mean we're going to start researching something.

So we use jump into or dive into.

I'm going to jump into this book.

I'm going to jump into this data.

Or you can say I'm going to dive into it. ready to dive into the online dating world.

When you use these two phrases, instead of just saying I'm going to start to research it, when you say jump into or dive into, it means you're very enthusiastic or excited about what you're researching or what kind of data you're going through.

A really important phrasal verb is the phrasal verb to play out.

This is very advanced, so take notes as I explain this here.

When we talk about events playing out, it means that we are going to watch how things naturally happen.

We're not going to intervene.

Or oftentimes we say, oh, this always kind of plays out the same way.

It means there's a pattern or a typical way that this thing happens.

Let me give you an example because I understand this is a difficult phrase at first.

So I'm talking about my kids here.

I have three children and whenever one of them gets a new toy...

The same thing always plays out.

They always fight over it because they, the other two, are jealous.

You know that one has a new toy and you know I have to say take turns, make sure you share.

So the same situation plays out every time here.

Wait, let's see how this plays out.

So another way that you can use this phrase is when you are urging someone not to take any action before they see what the result of things are.

So you might say, hey, let's just see what plays out here.

The kid's got a new toy, but we're gonna see if they fight over it or if they can get along.

So that just means that you're not going to intervene or try to put yourself in the situation before you see the result of what happens.

And I told you, the same thing plays out every time.

My kids usually fight over the one new toy, even though of course, I have so many different toys to play with.

This next phrasal verb I'm sure you've heard before and I'm pretty sure you know how to use it, but I'm teaching it to you today so that I can caution you against offending American English speakers.

So the phrasal verb is to calm down.

When we calm down, it means we're trying to relax after either a stressful situation or just something that we were really worried about, really anxious about, really angry about.

You know, we have these high emotions, but we need to calm down.

It means we need to relax.

Now never say to someone who is angry or stressed just calm down, because that comes off as really offensive.

It's kind of minimizing their emotions.

You need to validate their emotions.

Be like, I know you're angry.

I know you're stressed, but it'd be better to relax and try to calm down a little bit.

That's how you can use this phrasal verb in a more effective way either than just saying just calm down.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

So you probably have heard the English idiom to be under the weather or to get sick.

Not really an idiom, but you've probably heard these phrases before.

The phrasal verb that we often use, even more so than I'm under the weather, is to come down with something.

I'm starting to come down with something.

This means you're starting to get sick.

In this case, I'm starting to come down with something.

You're not sure what it is, but maybe you have a little bit of a scratchy throat, perhaps a little bit of a fever.

You're just not feeling great.

Or you could say I'm coming down with a stomach virus, which means you're about to have some stomach problems.

So you can be specific with this phrasal verb or just in general.

I'm starting to come down with something.

You can use this phrasal verb in the past tense as well.

You could say last week I came down with a cold.

I'm feeling better now.

So we always say come down with, and either just something if we don't know what it is, or any sort of sickness cold flu, stomach virus, rash any sort of sickness or physical problem.

In life, you don't want to let people down.

The phrasal verb to let down means to disappoint.

I'm sorry to let you down.

This just means I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Maybe you didn't do something that you promised you would do.

That means you're going to let people down.

You might say to your team if you're trying to motivate them, hey, let's not let each other down.

Let's do our work.

Let's do what we promised we would get done.

So this can be an encouraging phrase as well.

Moving on, let's learn some phrasal verbs that contain by.

So to drop by.

Have you ever been driving and you think oh, I should see my friend that lives over here real quick.

Maybe you would call them and say, hey, are you free?

I was going to drop by.

This means you're going to go to their house or go to wherever they are.

Maybe they're at an event or a restaurant and you weren't expecting to meet up with them or to go hang out with them, but you're just going to do it unexpectedly or, you know, on a short notice.

That means you're calling them or texting them the day of or right when you're nearby.

You're going to drop by.

No, no, no.

I just drop by.

Maybe you're at work and your boss tells you, hey, can you drop by my office later in the day?

This means the exact same as stop by or whenever you think of it.

There's no exact planned time, but they're just asking you when it's convenient to drop by.

So this is a really casual and friendly phrasal verb that you can use.

And I think it's more common in American English than other places that speak English around the world.

To get by.

This is another really important phrasal verb and that can be used in a ton of different contexts.

When you get by.

It means you either are surviving or you are successful with really limited skills or really limited resources.

So maybe you've taken a little bit of French in school, but you're not a great French speaker.

You could say, oh, I just have enough French to get by when I'm traveling.

Maybe you can say things like, where's the bathroom?

How much does this cost?

Hello, my name is... But you're not really a fluent French speaker.

You're not even a... mid-level French speaker, you just have enough to get by, to survive.

And oftentimes we use this phrasal verb to get by when we're talking about having enough money to either survive or pay our bills.

Like, I just made enough money to get by this month.

This means I just made enough money to pay for food and my bills this month.

There is no extra.

Have you ever wished that you could just do over something that you messed up on?

So this phrasal verb?

It means the exact same in English as to redo something, to do it again, to try to do it successfully without errors.

And oftentimes we use this phrasal verb as an actual noun.

We say, oh, I want to do over.

This means I want another chance.

I want a second chance because I either messed up or failed.

A friend the other day was talking about making a recipe and they were trying to make this really complicated frosting for a cake and it just wasn't turning out good.

So they said I kept having to do it over.

This means I had to try to keep making it over and over again until it tasted good, until it was correct.

Mom, do it over.

When we use the phrasal verb to get over, we typically say to get over something.

So we can use this again when we're talking about being sick.

I need to get over this cold.

This means I need to recover from this cold or this sickness.

Or you could say, I need to get over this task.

This means it's something really difficult and you just need to do it and be done and recover.

We can talk about having an emotional recovery as well when we say we need to get over something.

Maybe you are really disappointed or you have a breakup from a relationship and you've been very sad and depressed.

You could say, I just need to get over this. this person or I need to get over this breakup.

This means you need to recover emotionally from the situation that just happened.

When talking about difficult situations, we can also use this next phrasal verb to come through.

When we say that we're going to come through, typically we say come through on something.

It means we are going to succeed through difficult conditions.

So maybe you are in a college class or any sort of classroom and you have A grade that is not very good.

You might say I need to come through on this final exam.

This means you need to succeed, even though the class has been difficult.

Pretty big deal come through when you're in a team situation and one person you know helps you in a really difficult situation.

They do something that was difficult for everyone else and helped your team succeed.

You could say that person really came through for the team.

It means they delivered, or they helped deliver, good results in a very difficult situation.

So this phrasal verb, I would say, is commonly used in the workplace or in any sort of team situation.

To close versus to close down.

So to close simply means, you know, to shut something.

So can you close the fridge?

Can you close the door?

Can you close your mouth?

Now, when we say close down, we always have to use this phrasal verb when we're talking about businesses or companies or shops.

So you could say, what time does your shop close down?

And this means close the doors and open up again.

But more frequently we use this phrasal verb to say that a business is going to completely close forever.

It's going out of business if it closes down forever.

So there was a store in the United States called Party America and they closed down.

So that means they're not open anymore.

They weren't making money probably because people buy their party supplies on Amazon.

And so they just closed down.

They couldn't keep their doors open anymore.

Right now, another company that is closing down in the United States is Joann Fabric.

So people who make quilts and they make their own clothes are very sad because their favorite fabric store is closing down.

Sadly, a lot of businesses closed down during COVID because they had no customers.

My favorite restaurant closed down.

To nail versus to nail down.

If you nail something, it means you secure it with a hammer and a nail.

You hammer it down.

You nail it down.

Then when we use the phrasal verb to nail down, it means to finalize something.

So the most common way I use this phrasal verb is if I'm talking to a friend and we want to meet up, we want to hang out.

We don't really know when we're available.

Maybe I'll say, oh, I'll text you and we can nail down a time.

This means we can finalize a time or make it official when we're actually going to hang out.

Rather than just saying, you know, we should hang out sometime.

I'll be like, we should nail down a time to hang out.

So this is making it official, finalizing something.

Another way that people use this phrasal verb is they say you know we're gonna have this project, but we need to nail down the details.

This means we need to sit down and actually think about how this project is going to work, or maybe we can nail down everyone's responsibilities later.

So we're saying that later we'll choose which job everyone is doing in the project.

When you use this phrasal verb, it means you need to make something official and usually you're kind of procrastinating it if you're saying I'm going to nail it down later.

This is a phrasal verb that native speakers never really think about how they use, differently than just the regular verb, but it really confuses English language learners.

I'm talking about to write versus to write down.

So to write is a very general verb.

You can be writing a book.

You can be writing a poem.

You can be writing something important.

But we use the phrasal verb to write down to mean that we're going to write something that is important for us to remember or important to us to have on paper so that we can look at it later.

We can reference it later.

So if you say, can you write down your phone number?

It means I need this so that I can look at it because I can't remember your phone number in my head.

Or let me write down your address in my phone.

You don't have to physically be writing it with a pen and paper.

You could be typing it.

But we use this phrasal verb even if we're just putting it on our phone.

I need to write down your address.

I need to write down, you know, the time of my appointment.

Whatever you need to remember, we use that phrasal verb, write down.

Write that down.

One tip is never use this phrasal verb when someone is actually very mad.

It tends to make the person more upset.

Let me know in the comments if you agree.

But if someone is very upset, you could say...

Calm down.

Don't say this.

You can, but it's you know.

I tend to think that this has the opposite reaction of what you think it does.

But when you say that someone needs to calm down, it means they need to start to relax.

Maybe they're angry and they need to de-escalate.

They need to try to relax, try not to be so stressed.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

Maybe you're in an argument with someone and you say, once I calm down, I can talk to you.

So this just means once you're less upset and less angry in the moment, you can talk more rationally and more reasonably about something.

If something breaks down, it means it completely breaks.

It doesn't work anymore.

We often talk about mechanical things as breaking down.

My car broke down yesterday.

If you have a breakdown, a person does, it means they have so many emotions that they just can't even.

They can't even just operate in life anymore.

And a lot of times we say that somebody had a mental breakdown.

That just means that too many upsetting things have happened to them.

Maybe they have depression and some other things that they just can't function in life anymore.

So telling someone to hold something is quite different than telling them to hold back something.

You could literally hold back a person.

Maybe a person's really upset and you're holding them back from attacking someone, or maybe you're holding back a dog.

Now we more commonly use this phrase when we're talking about holding back our emotions or holding back a secret.

It's like you're not letting the audience or people know how you actually feel, or you're not letting them know the secret quite yet.

You're holding it back until later.

When something blows up, we mean it explodes.

So you can mean it's an actual fiery explosion or you can mean that an argument has happened.

If you said they had a big blow up or she blew up at her or he blew up when he heard the news, it means someone is very angry and expressing it in a loud and very bold way.

If they blew up, they're very angry.

Or if they had a big blow up, it means a big fight.

Don't blow up.

Please don't blow up.

To turn down.

When you turn down something, you are refusing or saying no to an offer.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to turn down the offer.

This means I'm going to have to say no.

Or maybe you offer someone a cookie and they'll say oh, I'm on a diet.

I actually have to turn that down.

That means they're trying to eat healthy.

So they're saying no, turning it down to drop off.

If you drop off something, you're leaving something in a specific place.

Oftentimes you know you'll say to your friend oh, i'm going to drop off some food for you.

This means i'm going to come to your door and just give it to you.

It typically doesn't mean you're going to stay and hang out somewhere.

It's more talking about bringing something somewhere and then leaving it there.

Drop me off.

Drop me off!

A really important phrasal verb that I always teach because it can be a bit confusing to English learners is to come across.

If you come across something, it means you discover something by accident.

So you could say, I came across a really funny picture of myself when I was a kid.

That means maybe you were just kind of looking through your old belongings and all of a sudden you found it and you said oh, what's this?

And you came across it.

To end the lesson, let's review some miscellaneous phrasal verbs that, again, are just so important.

You'll come across these phrasal verbs every day.

Carry on.

If you use the phrasal verb carry on, it means just continue.

Don't be bothered.

So maybe you ask someone a question and you get your answer correct and you say to them okay, you can carry on now.

Sorry to bother you.

It just means continue, keep working.

I'm going to carry on with my work and not be distracted.

This just means I'm not going to stop.

Carry on.

If you back up, it means you either reverse or you're supporting something.

The most modern way that we use back up is we say we're going to back up some data or some files.

So maybe we have some pictures on our phone and if our phone breaks we don't wanna lose those pictures forever.

We back them up by putting them on a data cloud somewhere.

Maybe use Dropbox or Amazon Photos or your iCloud.

You're backing up those photos.

Don't give up.

If someone gives up, they stop trying.

Or, you know, maybe they give up their money to someone.

This just means that they didn't want to give their money, but they just gave up.

They just gave it to them.

You could give up, give up?

Let's move on to some phrasal verbs that use the word on now.

There's a pretty good list for this one as well.

Tack on.

When you tack on something, you add either a charge or an item.

Two common examples of this phrasal verb are to tack on a charge.

So if you're at a restaurant and there's an extra charge on the bill, you can say oh, it looks like they tacked on an extra charge.

Or if you're adding something to someone's to-do list for them to complete, you can say hey, I'm tacking on a few things to your to-do list.

Similarly, the next phrasal verb is pile on.

When you pile on things, you add things very quickly.

So if you're going to carry a lot of kids on your back, you could say, everybody pile on.

That means jump onto my back.

Now you can also say that my boss is piling on tons of work this week.

That means they're adding tons and tons of work very quickly.

You could also use pile on to mean that everyone is being critical of someone or something.

So if you do something, you could say, why is everyone piling on their complaints to me?

That means why is everyone telling me all their complaints or their bad things all at one time?

Try on.

If you try on something, you put on an item of clothing to see how it looks.

You're not going to wear it for the day.

You're just trying to see how it looks.

So this is a very important phrasal verb for shopping.

If you go to a mall, you are going to want to use a dressing room to try on clothes to see if you want to buy them.

Decide on.

When you decide on something, you carefully consider all of your possibilities or all of your choices, and then you make a decision.

So some families will take a long time to decide on where they want to go for vacation, especially if everyone has different ideas of the type of vacation they want to go on.

Maybe they'll decide on things like the cost, or they'll decide on if they want to go to the beach or go to the mountains.

And then they'll decide on the final vacation choice.

Cheat on.

If you cheat on someone, it means that you were in a relationship with them, very committed, and you had an affair, or you started seeing someone else, so you're lying to them.

You can also cheat on a test.

That means somehow you had the answers wrong. on the test you were being dishonest.

So whenever you cheat on someone or something, the test it means you're being dishonest and you're lying.

Lie on.

When you lie on something, it means, you know, you're reclined.

You're laying down, you're relaxed.

Typically we use lie on when someone is asleep or down on something that's not a bed.

So we can say, they were so tired they were lying on the table.

Or you could say, I was so tired I decided to lie on the couch and take a nap.

Come on.

When you want to say that a person or a show or some sort of program is going to be on the television screen, you can say it's going to come on the television screen.

A really common question you might ask if you're wondering when a show is going to be released or you're going to be able to watch it.

Is you could say when is the show going to come on Netflix?

Or when does this movie come on Netflix?

That means when will it be available for me to watch on the television?

Count on.

If you can count on someone or count on something, it means you can rely or depend on the thing or the person.

If you ever visit Florida in the United States, you can count on the weather being sunny but rainy for at least part of the day.

Even though it's generally very nice and hot in Florida, there's usually a small rainstorm throughout the day.

It's important to have reliable people that you can count on in life.

Go back on.

When you go back on an agreement or something that you said you would do, it means you fail to do that promise or you fail to do that agreement, even though you said you would.

So when you go back on something, it's like telling a lie.

For instance, it feels like politicians in the United States always go back on the promises that they make during elections.

So they promise all these good things.

They promise money to everyone.

But then, once they get elected, they go back on their promises, meaning they don't fulfill their promises.

Have on.

If you have on...

Something.

We're usually talking about clothing or accessories or something on your body.

You could say to someone, if you notice their jewelry, oh, you have on earrings today.

They look beautiful.

That means you're wearing them today.

Or if you're talking to your friend on the phone and you want to know what they're wearing, you could say what do you have on?

This means what are you wearing right now?

If you've ever heard the phrase to come out of something, you might have heard it in a context where someone is in some sort of negative state or a different mental state and all of a sudden they come out of it and they are cleared up or in a better situation.

A lot of times when people go through a divorce or a breakup, they come out of it stronger, meaning it's a very dark and very... depressing time for them but at the end when they are all healed their emotions are healed they are stronger so they come out of it stronger you're talking about the result after a tough situation we use this in medical situations as well if someone's in a coma they're basically unconscious sleeping for a long time you know usually there's medical comas we say when are they going to come out of their coma which means when are they going to be awake and clear-minded We also talk about coming out of a depression, meaning either you get some treatment or you're just happier all of a sudden, you come out of this bad state.

I've come out the other side a little bit stronger.

If you've never heard the verb to stoop, let me break it down to you, and I'm going to explain a really great phrase that you can use with it.

So normally when we say that somebody is stooping, it means they're kind of bending over like let me stoop down to get the coin.

It's not really frequently used, but once in a while you hear it.

It's kind of like you're bending your neck and you're getting low.

Sometimes, when we use the verb to stoop, we're talking about lowering your moral standards or your beliefs.

So a lot of times this phrase is used, we say, I'm not going to stoop that low.

This means no matter the situation, I am not going to lower my moral standards.

Perhaps you have a coworker and they start spreading rumors around the office about you.

And you say, I am not going to do anything like that.

I'm not going to do anything wrong like that.

I will not stoop to their level.

So it's like you're insulting their behavior, their morals.

You're saying what they're doing isn't right.

And just because they're doing it, I'm not going to stoop that low and do it.

During the pandemic, a lot of people had plans that just fell through.

We use this phrasal verb to fall through when we're talking about plans or any sort of you know things projects, agreements that we have that just don't work out or they're kind of failed.

So during the pandemic, a lot of people had these vacations planned months and months in advance and they didn't expect there to be so many shutdowns and things like that.

So they could say, my vacation fell through due to the pandemic.

Or maybe you were supposed to meet a friend for coffee and something happens and they can't meet you.

You could say, oh, our plans fell through.

It means they weren't successful.

Some people in life say it's always important to have a backup plan or something that you can do if everything else fails.

Another phrasal verb that we use for this is we can say we have something to fall back on.

So this means it's an option or a resource or a plan that we can use if our main plan fails.

So a lot of people... use this in financial context.

Maybe you're going to start your own business and if it fails, it's good to have some money saved to fall back on.

Or maybe you are going to move to another country and if it doesn't work out you can just move back in with your parents at home.

That's your plan to fall back on.

If you have children, sometimes you might want to yell at them or say, what's wrong with you?

Why did you do that?

But you need to hold back.

You need to hold back your emotions.

This means that you can't just express yourself very loudly.

The phrasal verb to hold back.

It means to stop yourself or someone or something from doing something or expressing something.

So we can also say what's holding you back in life?

This means what's stopping you from becoming successful?

This is a really common question.

Is there anything holding you back from achieving your goal?

This means is there anything stopping you?

And we like to think of this phrasal verb as something that someone's trying to achieve a goal or go somewhere, but there are factors in life that are holding them back, like physically holding them back and just holding them back in their goals.

If you have a friend that you've been friends with for a long time maybe since your childhood, from your younger days you might have trouble staying close, staying close friends, and you might start to drift apart.

The phrasal verb to drift apart.

It means to lose closeness in a relationship, or maybe you're just not very good friends anymore, maybe because you quite literally move away from each other or you start to lose contact with each other.

After you know you've worked with someone for a long time and you go to a new job, it might be hard to stay friends with your old coworkers and you start to drift apart.

You know.

Slowly.

You're not texting them or emailing them or hanging out as much, because you don't see them every day.

So drifting apart, it's usually seen as a slow process.

You're losing closeness with someone or you're kind of losing your friendship slowly.

We just drifted apart.

It's complicated.

Now, quite the opposite.

If we say that a relationship is falling apart, it means it's very quickly stopping or not functioning.

You know, maybe there is a big problem or a big argument that causes your friendship to fall apart or even your romantic relationship to fall apart.

It means to break or to just fail emotionally.

Things fall apart.

We could fall apart.

A lot of times, when people get old and they start to have sore muscles or some sort of injury or arthritis, we say kind of as a joke, I'm falling apart.

I'm falling into pieces.

This just means our body is not working as it should.

It's not working like when we were young.

Sometimes, when you're learning a new language or you're speaking a new language, it can feel like you don't catch on to jokes as quickly as everyone else who's a native speaker in the room.

This phrasal verb, to catch on, means to understand.

It can also mean to become popular.

So you could say you know, skinny jeans or whatever type of clothing is really, they're really catching on right now.

This means a lot of people are starting to wear them.

It's becoming popular.

Like I was saying in my example before, if you're catching on to something, you're starting to understand it like a joke.

Maybe you didn't laugh at somebody's joke and a few minutes later you start thinking...

Oh, I understand it now.

You can say, oh, I just caught on to your joke from earlier.

This is a really common natural phrase.

It's catching on, chip in.

So when we say chip in, it means everyone is sharing either an expense and they're giving a little bit of money to pay for something, or maybe if you are trying to get something done, we could say could everyone chip in and try to help with this?

During the christmas season, usually for my parents, i asked my siblings to chip in on a gift.

This means everyone contributes part of the money to pay for the gift so we can buy something nicer.

So we have to answer versus to answer to.

So answering a question would simply be, you know, providing a response, saying you know what is the answer to a question, answering or answering the phone.

Hello.

When we say that someone is answering to another person, it means they are following somebody's authority or they have to follow the directions because someone is higher up than them or a boss, especially when we're talking about work.

So I answer to my boss who is this person.

This means that they are in charge of me.

So it's a lot different than just saying, you know, I'm answering a question.

I'm answering to person.

They are in charge of me, they are my boss, and if you don't have a boss, maybe you are self-employed like myself.

You don't answer to anyone, the nobody to answer to.

Okay, now this last one.

It's not a simple verb versus a phrasal verb.

It's a phrasal verb versus a more complex phrasal verb.

So pay close attention, because if you've made it this far in the lesson, I know you are really, really learning.

So first we have come down, Come down, come downstairs.

This means, you know, go down, especially in levels on a house.

When we say something is going to come down to something, we're talking about the deciding factor in a situation.

Remember, I told you this phrasal verb was a little bit complicated.

Let me give you a couple of examples here.

So I'm a runner, I like to run, but sometimes it comes down to the weather if I am being consistent or not.

So the deciding factor here is the weather.

It's coming down to the weather, because if it's really cold outside, I don't like to go for a run, or if it's raining or storming or whatever it would be.

But if it's nice, The decision is going to come down to me going for a run because it's nice out.

If you're trying to eat healthy and you're deciding what's for lunch, it might come down to which option is more healthy.

Are you going to eat pizza or are you going to eat a salad?

Well, it comes down to the fact that salad has less calories here.

So that's the deciding factor in what you eat.

Maybe you meet a friend and they say we should catch up sometime.

This means that we should get up to date or current on each other's lives.

This means, you know, having a conversation about what's going on in our lives to inform the other person.

Or if you miss a class you're in a university or in a school of some sort you might ask one of your classmates, your fellow students, to catch you up on what you missed.

This just means inform you on the information that you missed.

We should catch up sometime.

Instead of saying understand or trying to understand something, English speakers usually use the phrasal verb to figure out.

I need to figure out how this works.

It's kind of like solving a problem or understanding it, figure it out.

To put together means to assemble or to create, so oftentimes, if you buy furniture from the store ikea, you have to put together the furniture by yourself, and this is the most common way that we say this.

We don't typically say you have to build the furniture.

You say you have to put it together.

This means we have all the parts.

We just need to literally put the parts together or assemble them put together some time.

Here are some phrasal verbs that you can use in your social everyday interactions.

The first is get along.

We typically say that two people get along when they're friendly and they work well together and they agree on most things.

Or you could say I don't get along with this person, meaning that you kind of fight with them or you share a lot of different opinions, which makes it hard to either hang out with them or work with them.

I don't get along with women.

So when you wanna say that people have a good relationship because they get along really well, or if you wanna say they have a bad relationship and they typically fight, you could say they don't get along.

We use break up in two common ways.

If we wanna say that two people have ended their relationship, we can say they broke up, Or we can say we are going to break up a fight, meaning we're going to stop a fight.

And typically we use this phrasal verb if it's a physical fight.

So if there's a fight in a school, we say, hey, break up, break up the fight.

This means stop the fight, separate the two people.

Break up is typically synonymous, which means it can mean the exact same as separate.

We're not breaking up.

Are we breaking up?

The exact opposite of breaking up two things is to make up two things meaning, you know, to kind of apologize and agree after a fight.

If you have an argument with someone, it's important to make up and say sorry.

This just means repair the relationship.

Not making up?

If you're not already.

If you want to say that you want to spend time with someone, use the phrasal verb I'm going to hang out with someone.

It's the most common way just to say that we're going to spend time casually as friends with someone.

Oh, I'm going to hang out with Lisa this weekend.

I can't wait to hang out with my friend Jenny this weekend.

It just means spend time casually.

Hanging out, hanging out with baby.

If you look up to someone, it doesn't mean physically looking always.

It can also mean that you admire them.

Typically, people look up to their parents, they look up to their grandparents, or maybe they look up to a friend that they think is very successful and honest.

They look up to you.

Let's talk about some movement phrasal verbs.

First, we have move in.

If someone says, hey, when do you move into your house?

It means when do you get to start living in your new place or move your possessions into this place?

When we talk about the phrasal verb to set up, we're talking about arranging things or getting ready or preparing for something.

So maybe before you cook a meal you want to set up your kitchen by just kind of cleaning everything and getting out the ingredients.

You're getting ready to cook something, you're setting up.

Set up camp.

To cut off.

Cut it off.

If you get interrupted, you could say, I got cut off.

I was talking to my friend, but I got cut off by another person.

This means another person came in and disrupted your whole conversation and you couldn't talk anymore.

Or more commonly, on the phone.

If for some reason, the phone call is interrupted, maybe it has to do with technology.

You could say, oh, I'm sorry, our phone call got cut off.

That means it got disconnected or it ended.

And finally, a really common phrasal verb that everyone should know and should be using is to look forward.

To look forward to something.

This means you are excited and you are anticipating an event.

I'm really looking forward to my next birthday.

I'm going to have a big celebration.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

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[Mastering English Phrasal Verbs: A Comprehensive Guide]-[148 Top Advanced Phrasal Verbs]

📋 Summary

Mastering Phrasal Verbs: A Comprehensive Guide

Phrasal Verbs with "Down"

Phrasal Verbs with "Up"

Phrasal Verbs with "Out" and "On"

Phrasal Verbs with "Over," "In," and "Through"

Miscellaneous Everyday Phrasal Verbs

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript