Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing well and that you're ready to learn three new phrasal verbs today.
The first one is doze off.
The second one is drag on. and the third one is draw upon.
So let's look at the definition of each of these phrasal verbs and see an example of each one.
Doze off means to fall asleep usually unintentionally and during the day.
So typically we would use this phrasal verb when we say that someone wasn't trying to fall asleep, but they did, maybe in the afternoon or something.
For example, I could say, Grandpa often dozes off when he watches TV in the afternoon.
Here, I'm not saying that grandpa tries to go to sleep.
He is just watching TV and his eyes start to close and he falls asleep unintentionally.
So he dozes off.
Drag on means to last for a longer time than is necessary or expected.
For example, I could say people thought the war would end quickly, but it dragged on for years.
Here I'm saying that the war lasted for a longer time than it should have, than it was expected to, right.
So this is often a phrase we use in negative contexts when something drags on.
It's lasting longer than what is necessary.
Lastly, draw upon.
Draw upon means to utilize or rely on some resource experience knowledge, something like that that is available to you.
For example, I could say he drew upon his childhood memories to write the novel.
Here I'm saying that he utilized his experiences and his memories.
He utilized them for material for his novel.
Like he based his novel on those memories from his childhood,
Okay, now I'm going to talk about a few different things, and I'll use these phrasal verbs again and again in different sentences.
And by the end of this episode, hopefully you feel more comfortable with these phrasal verbs and how they're used.
And these phrasal verb episodes are also great practice for your listening.
So you're getting listening practice as well.
And if you need the transcript, it's down below in the description.
So first let me talk about times when people might doze off.
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is after a heavy lunch.
This is one of those situations, those times of day when it is the easiest to doze off.
Sometimes after I eat a heavy lunch, I feel my eyes closing.
I feel like it's hard for me to concentrate on whatever work I'm doing or book I'm reading, and I have to fight the urge to close my eyes because I feel like dozing off.
I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about.
When we eat a big meal, especially around lunchtime, it can feel hard to be productive afterwards because we feel sleepy.
It's easy to doze off in our chair on the couch or wherever you are.
Sometimes I'll be here at my desk sitting down working or studying, and I feel my eyes start to close, my eyelids feel heavy and it's so hard to just stay awake, even though I'm at my desk working, because I ate a heavy lunch or breakfast or whatever, and maybe it's the time of day when you start to feel a little bit tired.
That can happen, like in the early afternoon perhaps.
So it's easy to doze off after a heavy lunch or a heavy meal.
It could be breakfast or dinner maybe, but oftentimes it's a heavy lunch that afterwards you feel like you might just doze off at any second.
I also sometimes feel like I'm about to doze off When I'm reading.
Reading is a great way to help you sleep at night.
That's why a lot of people like reading right at the end of the day when they're trying to go to bed.
As your eyes are focusing on the words, it's very easy to doze off while you're reading.
This happened to me literally last night.
I was reading a book before bed and I felt like my eyes were closing and it would have been very easy for me to doze off right then and there.
So I just closed the book and went to bed.
When I was a kid, this used to happen to me when watching movies at night.
I would sometimes doze off before the movie was over.
It was very common for me to do that. especially if I was comfy on the couch.
I would easily doze off in the middle of the movie and then wake up when the movie was over.
That happened a lot when I was a kid.
And one other time when we definitely need to make sure we don't doze off is when driving.
If you drive when you're tired, this can be very dangerous, so you should not do this, because some people doze off as they're driving because they're tired and they end up getting in an accident.
This is not good.
So this is a situation in which we don't want to doze off.
So those are some different situations that I thought of.
Another topic that I wanted to talk about is things that drag on.
Things that tend to last longer than they're supposed to last.
So one thing that comes to mind is wars and conflicts.
These tend to drag on way longer than expected and honestly nowadays, when a country starts a war, we should just expect that this will last a long time.
It's gonna drag on, because That's what almost always happens nowadays.
We think that it's just going to be a quick conflict, but the conflict drags on for years thereafter.
That's a very common thing.
War and conflicts drag on.
Also, fights and disputes among family members.
These tend to drag on.
Maybe a minor disagreement ends up escalating, like it becomes more significant, more severe, and it turns into a bigger fight, a big dispute, and these fights can drag on for a long time.
Even though it was just a small disagreement at the beginning Uh, people's feelings got hurt maybe, and then no one apologized, and then they stopped talking, and then this dispute drags on for days weeks months, even years.
I've heard of disputes that have dragged on for literally decades, so this is something that happens among family members.
I'm sure some of you can think of instances of different fights that happened in your family and then the dispute drags on for a long time after that.
Another thing that I used to feel that dragged on was when I was a kid.
Summer vacation often dragged on.
We were always very excited for summer vacation.
We were ready to take a break from school.
It was always super exciting at the end of May and the beginning of June when we were anticipating the summer vacation, but then, after a month and a half or so of being on summer vacation, it would start to feel like summer was dragging on.
Some of you might know what I'm talking about.
When I was a kid.
I remember that by the time we were in the second half of the summer vacation, I was already thinking about the next school year because I wanted to go and be in that environment again.
So it seemed like summer dragged on at times as a kid.
So That was something that I felt then.
Now I do not feel like summer drags on or like different seasons last forever, because the older you get, the faster, the more quickly Time flies.
So I wish summer felt longer now, but the years feel shorter and shorter as you get older.
Another thing that drags on is hot afternoons, especially in the summer and especially if you're not busy.
If you're just there in your living room on the couch on a hot summer afternoon, it can feel like the day drags on.
That's how I have felt at times.
I feel kind of lazy there.
The day lasts a long time if I am not very productive that day or something.
So hot afternoons can drag on.
And boring things like boring movies, boring speeches, boring books, these can often drag on.
They feel like they're lasting forever because you're not interested in them.
There are some books that I have finished, but I didn't really feel like finishing because they kind of dragged on towards the end or at some point.
So a lot of boring content can feel like it is dragging on.
Lastly, let me talk about recording my podcast and what I draw upon for inspiration.
One thing I draw upon for ideas for my podcast episodes is my daily life.
For example, a few days ago I saw a fox in my backyard and because of that I decided to record an episode about the animals around my house.
So I drew upon my daily situation, my daily life to think of an idea for that episode.
And that happens all the time.
I draw upon my experiences, my daily conversations.
I might even draw upon some of my arguments that I've had, if there's some material there that is interesting to talk about.
So I draw upon my daily experiences.
I also draw upon my language learning experiences, because I often talk about language learning related topics in my podcast episodes or my YouTube videos.
So I draw upon my own experience as a language learner to give tips, give encouragement, give advice related to learning English.
I'm able to draw upon my own experience as a language learner.
And I also draw upon my experiences that I've had talking to students, because many times I learn about the language learning process because of things that my students have done and achievements that they've had and progress that they've made.
And I ask them how they reached their current level and they tell me and I draw upon these conversations, these experiences that I have with students and to talk about learning English and give some ideas about how to reach a higher level.
So I draw upon my experiences talking to students, And I also just draw upon things.
I read things, I hear things, I watch.
I draw upon different things. in order to come up with ideas for episodes, new topics to talk about.
Sometimes I'm learning a language and the topic that the person is talking about in that video is an interesting topic, and so I decide to talk about it in my own video or my own podcast episode.
I might just draw upon things that I watch or hear when I'm learning a language or doing other things.
I hope that as I was talking, you were able to hear these phrasal verbs many times and start to understand how they're used, and hopefully you can even use them in your own sentences now.
When more than one person is talking.
That's an essential skill that you need to develop.
So start listening to the US Conversations podcast so you can improve in that area.
That link is down below.
Thank you all for listening to this phrasal verb episode, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
