This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2293.
Head for greatness with these five phrasal verbs.
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Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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Why should you say head out instead of leave?
Learn how a phrasal verb can increase your connections instantly as we make sense of five of these tricky phrasal verbs.
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Hello Lindsay, how are you?
Fantastic, Aubrey. How are you doing today?
I am great. I have a fun question for you.
All right. Are you heading to a fun destination this weekend?
Oh my gosh, this weekend is a little quieter for me, but last weekend I headed up to Steamboat Springs for a wedding actually in the mountains.
Oh, I've heard Steamboat Springs is beautiful.
I've never been. Yeah, I mean getting married where the wedding we went to was on the top of a mountain on top of that ski mountain.
Very cool. And the happy hour, the cocktail hour was beautiful.
The golden hour in the mountains and the sun went down, we went in for dinner.
It was like amazing.
Oh, that sounds so dreamy.
I love it. You probably noticed guys that I used an interesting phrasal verb asking Lindsay about her weekend.
I asked her if she's heading to a fun destination, and you said we headed up to the mountains.
There are so many phrasal verbs with head and they're all very, there's like slight differences in how you use them, which makes it very easy to mix them up.
100%. That's why I'm so excited that this listener asked this question because we're getting into the most real native natural English we can possibly get into, Aubrey, today.
Absolutely. And we don't use go all that often, right?
We say head to, head over, head up, run by.
There are so many phrasal verbs we use instead of go.
Go is the word that your textbooks would teach you or your classroom might teach you, but the real English is here.
So can I read the question, Aubrey?
Should I jump in? Yeah, let's do it.
All right. So hi, Allers English team.
I'm Sophia and I just want to say I love your content.
It's been super helpful in my learning.
Good. That is great to hear, Aubrey.
Yes, so good to hear.
Thank you, Sophia. I have a tough question though.
I'm a bit confused about the phrasal verbs, head to, head off, head out, head over, and head for.
Oh my gosh. They all seem to mean going somewhere, but what's the difference between them?
How do I use them correctly?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best, Sophia. Wow. There are a lot of them.
That's an amazing question.
I can only imagine she has heard all of them and they all kind of meant going somewhere.
Yeah. But when it comes to using them, how do you know which one to use?
Because they are all a little bit different.
That's a great question.
And just hearing her list them kind of blows me away.
Head to, head off, head out, head over, head for.
Wow. It's a lot. So I know even as a native speaker, we just use the one that sounds right that we're used to hearing and using, but to like, you know, you have to kind of think about, okay, what?
There's some slight nuances.
Yeah, there's some slight nuances.
So Aubrey, where is a good place to actually consume the podcast ad free and on different speeds, curated speeds, and to go deeper with vocabulary.
Yes. Lindsay is talking about our app, you guys.
If you don't have the Allers English app, it is amazing.
We do have a free trial and it's the best way to use vocabulary.
Add it to your power list.
We choose interesting vocabulary from each episode and we also have human created transcripts.
You can follow along while you listen to the podcast on transcripts.
It's the best way to listen to the podcast.
Yes. So go over to the app store.
If you're an app user, all the podcast episodes come through for free, just like they do here, but you can go so much deeper.
So go over and type in all ears English and hit download.
All right. Good. All right.
Let's dive in here.
We have a lot to get into today for our listeners.
Yes, we do. Yes. So the first one is head to, which just means go.
But we do say this a lot more often than we say go.
For example, if you're at a concert, you might say, oh, we're going to head to our seats.
Yeah. It almost would be strange to say we're going to go to our seats.
Right. Or I could think about the context of the wedding I was at last weekend.
People got to the top through the gondola.
They were taking photos of the view, and then they asked us to head to our seats to prepare for the ceremony.
Right. Exactly. We're going to head to the open bar.
We're going to head to the right.
Instead of go, we often say head to.
And there is a common mistake here we want to point out when you ask a question.
Sometimes we'll hear someone say, where are you heading to?
And instead, you could just say, where are you heading?
And this would be sort of native, especially to just save time to not have that dangling preposition.
Right. They'll just say, where are you heading?
Yeah. It's just, it's, it feels cleaner just to drop that preposition, drop it off.
Right. So I, so where are you heading?
Or I also say, where are you headed?
Maybe we'll get to that.
But yes, true to where are you headed?
Let's get to it right now because this just a head by itself, we use as a verb, right?
I'm headed there. I'm headed that way.
Where are you headed?
Oh, I love it. They were you headed to usually.
And again, you know, we keep coming back to this concept of what is the point of phrasal verbs other than they're not here to stress out our listeners phrasal verbs.
They're used to make things feel a little more casual in the connection.
Don't you think? Yes, exactly.
And there are so many in English.
Don't let them stress you out.
Of course you can say go, but you are going to hear all of today's phrasal verbs, just like Sophia did.
And we want you to be able to use them to, yeah, like you said, just, it's a little more casual.
It's a little more native and natural.
It's a little less intrusive.
Where are you going versus where you headed.
Where you headed. That's true.
There's a real difference there.
Okay. So next one is really different though.
Right. It is head off.
Doesn't just mean go.
This means to like intercept or to prevent or block something from happening.
You'll hear this a lot in the news.
They might say like we need to head off this economic crisis and it really means prevent.
Yeah, totally, totally different from leaving or going somewhere or the government was criticized for not heading off the economic collapse.
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So you can see how this won't come up as often in daily conversations.
Absolutely very useful in business English.
You will hear it on the news quite a bit more formal, even as a phrasal verb because the topics you're talking about, you don't really talk about preventing something like this in our daily conversations.
Right. Or we probably would just say keep that from happening.
Right. Ooh, I need to keep my daughter from coming home late.
I wouldn't say I'm going to head off that happening because it's just such a more formal meaning.
Yeah. A lot of times talking about calamities, economic stuff.
You know, the Fed has been lowering, started lowering interest rates to head off, you know, a recession, a potential recession.
That's how we would use that.
Okay? Exactly. Right.
We're using it for more serious topics, for sure.
All right. Now we're going back to kind of moving physically to different places.
Right. So head out means what, Aubrey?
Yeah. So this means to leave.
For example, you might say, what time should we out?
And that means maybe you're at a party or at a friend's house and you're asking your partner, maybe like, what time do you want to leave?
This is another way to say that.
What time should we head out?
Yeah. This is incredibly common.
I mean, I use this all the time.
Or just saying I'm headed out or I'm heading out.
Do you want me to pick up anything really common?
Exactly. Right. I love that you're pointing out all these different grammar structures we use it with.
We might just say, oh, it's time to head out.
But we'll also say I'm heading out in present continuous.
Yeah. Or I'm headed out and both all of those are accurate and very common.
Exactly. It means to leave.
But there's something different about saying I'm leaving.
Right. Or even what time do you want to leave?
It's like, what are you?
What's wrong? Okay.
Did something happen?
Right. No, I'm just heading out.
I want to head out.
I'm about ready. Right.
Good. Exactly. It removes sort of the seriousness and the formality just by using a phrasal verb.
That's amazing. Okay.
What's the next one?
Okay. The next one is head over, which means to go someplace nearby.
You might say, our neighbors invited us over for drinks.
Want to head over. We wouldn't use this for somewhere far away.
Right. If you're going to a wedding in the next town, wouldn't be like, let's head over to the wedding.
It should be somewhere close by.
Right. Or for example, I'm flying to Boston this weekend.
I'm not going to head over to Boston.
No, I'm going to fly on a plane for four hours.
That does not make any sense.
Right. Right. But once you're there, then, you know, you're at a party.
I'm going to head over to the bar.
Right. There at someplace nearby.
Right. Head over to my brother's house or something.
Sure. Yes. So it's all about proximity with head over.
Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Yes. All right. And then head for, oh my gosh, another one.
There's so many, every preposition.
So this means to go to a destination.
Usually you might say, I'm going to head for the beach.
It can be you're already close, right?
It might be very similar to head over.
Right. Or not necessarily.
You could be, maybe you haven't gone yet.
You say, I'm going to head for this destination.
Right. And it could be far too.
Right. So for example, on a road trip, if you start on the East Coast, maybe you're headed for or heading for the mountains, Texas or the west, going west.
Right. But so it's not exactly the same as head over.
Right. It could be far could be close.
Exactly. And we want to point out that we use this metaphorically a lot.
We'll say like she's heading for greatness or you're headed for trouble.
Yes. And this doesn't mean an actual location.
It's more of a metaphor of something that you are advancing toward.
That's really interesting.
I went to a play last night called Kimberly akimbo was the name of it.
It won some Tony awards.
It was good. It was being played in Denver here with some Broadway talent.
And the whole plot, the entire time they were planning this bank robbery, they were going to rob a bank, but they were good kids.
Like they were teenagers awkward.
It was kind of an interesting story.
And the whole time in my mind, oh, they're headed for trouble.
They're headed for a surprise.
They're going to end up in jail at the end of this play.
I won't tell you the ending.
But and anyways, it's just this feeling that something is coming.
Right. Yes. That foreshadowing.
Yeah. No movie TV show or a play where you can feel that they're headed for disaster.
Mm hmm. Exactly. Very common use of this.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. Okay.
Aubrey, our listeners love role plays.
So we're going to show them how this comes to life.
Yeah. Yes. You and I are discussing our weekend plans in this role play.
All right. So should we head for the mountains this weekend?
Absolutely. Let's head out Saturday morning around seven.
I'm going to head to the store and get some snacks for the hike.
Nice. I need to head over to Mike's to get my camel back.
He borrowed it last week.
Nice. Head, head, head.
Yes. Love it. But it doesn't even sound strange.
Like all of these are in the same conversation.
They all mean something a little different.
A hundred percent. So we opened by, I said, Hey, so should we head for the mountains this weekend, which is what most people do in Colorado here.
It's super common. Yeah, absolutely.
And this is the way we say it would be strange to be like, you know, our destination is the mountains of the weekend.
This is the most natural way to say it.
Let's head for the mountains this weekend.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
What else? What did you say?
And then I said, yeah, let's head out Saturday morning around seven.
So I'm suggesting the time we leave.
This means let's leave at 7 a .m.
Yeah. And just to let our listeners know, it's probably unlikely you'd see head in three sentences in a row in a conversation, right?
Someone might throw in something different, a different way of saying it, but just for the sake of the example today.
Yeah. Yeah. This one's interesting because they do all have different meanings, but it does still kind of seem strange when it's one sentence after another.
Like if you would sort of intuitively hear your head for head out.
So then maybe you'd say, I'm going to go to the store.
I'm going to run to the store instead of saying I'm going to head to the store.
Exactly. And last week or just a few weeks ago, we did an episode about I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to go to the store.
So check out that. And I totally agree.
If you had said head, I had said head, I probably would have said, I'm going to go to the store now and grab some snacks.
Right? Exactly. I said, I'm going to head to the store.
So just for the sake of today's learning.
Yeah. Yeah. Good point.
And this one head to the store just means go just another way.
There are so many ways to say that.
Like we said, I'm going to run to the store.
I'm going to head to the store.
There are so many ways that you would probably switch it up with that one.
Yeah. And I use run a lot too.
I'm going to run over and we talked about that recently too.
I think on the podcast.
So exactly all of the phrasal verbs with run, run by run to run over totally.
And then what did you say for the last one?
I said, I need to head to the store.
I need to head over to Mike's to get my camelback.
This is one of those backpacks that hold water, right?
A camelback. That's the brand, but so Mike must live close.
He does not live like in the next town.
If I say head over to Mike's, it's probably walking distance.
Yes. 100%. I love it.
Wow. Okay. So native and natural Aubrey, is there a takeaway for our listeners today to finish up?
I mean, first of all, I think they should listen again because this is an incredibly important episode for natural English.
And there's a lot of nuance here, right?
It is a little, these are so similar that it is a little tricky to keep them apart, right?
Our tips today can help you understand how these are used.
You will definitely hear them in conversations and we want you to be able to use them, but they can be a little tricky, right?
So listen again. I think that's a great idea, Lindsay, and throw these into your conversation to be a little more native and natural.
Yeah. Resist the temptation to just use what you learned in your textbook years ago.
Because there is some distance that can be created if we stay so formal.
So formal, right? Yeah.
Even you wouldn't think of go and run or, you know, go as a really formal verb or leave, but it's true.
It does add this formality because there are more casual phrasal verbs you could be using.
Yeah, that's true. I mean, the difference in tone between I'd like to leave versus Hey, I'm going to head out.
Very different. I know if you say I'm going to leave now, I'd be like, what's wrong with Lindsay?
Right? I'm angry or something.
Exactly. You got it.
So guys, don't forget to check out the app so you can, you can actually become a premium member and add these to your power list to be able to review them every week, especially through our new role plays that we put into the app just for premium members.
But if you just want a better way to listen, you can listen over there for free as well.
All right. Yes. Awesome.
Go to all years English .com slash app, APP to check it out.
All right. Aubrey, see you in the next one.
Take care. Awesome.
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