This is an all ears English podcast episode 2415 5 phrasal verbs to wash away English stress Welcome to the all ears English podcast Downloaded more than 200 million times.
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we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your American hosts Aubrey Carter, the IELTS WIZ, and Lindsey McMahon, the English Adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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Do you want to wash away the anxiety of phrasal verbs?
Listen in today as we explain five different phrasal verbs and what they mean for connection conversations.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
I'm doing fantastic today, Aubrey, how are you?
Great. I have a question.
Okay. When you were a kid, what did your parents say to tell you dinner was ready?
Oh, what did they tell me?
They said dinner's ready.
They just said dinner's ready.
Yeah. My mom always said, wash up for dinner.
Every time. Oh my God.
That's how we knew dinner was ready when we heard her yell, wash up for dinner.
Wash up for dinner, I love it.
What does that mean, wash up, Odzies?
It means wash your hands, so go and wash your hands, right, and get ready for dinner.
So many different things are said and it says so much about our families, right.
True. Really interesting.
Well, it was probably because we were playing outside.
So we were probably all muddy and filthy often, right?
We were like playing outside on a farm.
So it was like, didn't show you you had to come in and wash your hands.
use. Oh, you had a good life, a good childhood, right?
I love that. We got a great question about this phrasal verb, wash up, and other phrasal verbs with wash.
There are so many in English, and we're going to dive into some of these today.
Yeah, guys, by the way, don't forget to send your topic questions into support at allersenglish .com and we'll make sure they get on our list if there are good specific questions.
Here's the question.
Could you would please help me out with the phrasal verb like wash, like wash over me and wash up, especially because I was confused when someone said, the wreckage washed up months later.
Thank you so much for your help.
And this is from one of our loyal listeners.
Yes, such a great question.
And I can see where this would be confusing if you're reading an article and it says the wreckage washed up and the only time you've seen wash up is to mean wash your hands, right?
Wash something. That's a totally different meaning of the same phrasal verb.
Yes. Oh my gosh. Really interesting.
I love this. Guys before we get into the answer for our listener today, don't forget the best place to get transcripts for the podcast, get tappable keywords that you can save to your power list is inside our iOS Android app.
Aubrey, where can we get the app?
Yeah, go to allearsenglish .com slash app, A -P -P.
This is the best place to add vocabulary to your list. It's really easy.
We organize it for you.
So then five, six, seven keywords, every transcript, every episode.
You're going to be able to add to your own vocabulary list. Yeah, so go over use the app to make your own list, good stuff.
Okay, Aubrey, where should we start?
The question was about wash up.
Exactly, and wash over me but let's dive in first to wash up.
This does have two very distinct meanings.
Okay, first is this the wreckage washed up months later that means to wash up on shore on a beach so something was in the ocean or maybe a sea a really big lake and the waves pushed it on to the beach so we'd say it washed up on the beach by ending up on the beach after it was out in the water.
Mmm this happened to me once I was in Block Island in Rhode Island which is kind of a it's like a version of Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket but less yuppie, less fancy.
It's a better Nantucket.
And I was down on the beach and we were walking around on the beach. It was a cloudy day.
All of a sudden we look over there and there's a huge whale carcass, just a huge whale.
I'd never seen anything like it before.
The whale carcass was washed up on the beach. It was super cool.
It was a really cool experience actually.
There's real nature right there in front of you.
Yeah. It's interesting because But I had a different...
I'm like, oh, that's so sad.
I know. I felt that, too.
And you're like, it was so cool.
I'm like, Lindsey. Oh, whales died.
That's not cool. No, don't worry.
That feeling was in there, too.
But it was more just the stark size of it and inspired a sense of awe, awe about nature, right?
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Because it's one thing to see whales breaching in the distance when it's right there washed up on the shore.
Yeah. I'm sure it's crazy how gigantic it is.
Incredible. Incredible.
So what else do we need to know here, Aubrey?
Yeah, so this can happen to animals of course, but also like if someone loses jewelry, you'd say I lost my necklace in the water, but it washed up on the shore the next day.
So this is just a phrasal verb that we use to mean something came from the water and ended up on shore, on the beach. But then what your parents said to you was not anything about something coming up onto the beach, right?
Exactly. It's the same phrasal verb, wash up, which means to either wash oneself, your hands your body I'm gonna go wash up I will say this after playing sand volleyball because I'll have sand all on my feet and legs from diving in the sand I'm like I'm just gonna go wash up really quick yeah also we use it to mean like to clean up after a meal or wash the dishes right I might say I'll wash up you guys go sit and chat that means I'm going to do the dishes and clean the kitchen mmm I love it and then we could say wash away if we want to add the preposition away and this is to be removed by water
so I might actually say in my style, I might say, I'm gonna wash away the sand from my legs, right?
It's not very natural for me personally to say wash up for whatever reason.
I didn't say it as a kid, but I might say wash off.
Wash off the water.
Wash the water off.
Yeah, we have wash off.
We'll just jump to that one here.
So that's to remove something from the surface of something by washing.
And that's how I would say that more often too, right?
I need to wash the sand off my feet.
I need to wash the dirt off my hands, And so we'll say wash off when we're talking about just like something on the surface.
So a few options here really.
Oh my gosh, what else, Abre, what else do we need to know for Alyssa?
And for wash away, we'll also say this, if like imagine after a crime scene, and they're asking why, why don't we have, you know, footprints, why don't we have this?
And they'd say, well, they've rained that night, the rain washed away the footprints.
So that means it just was removed removed by water.
But we wouldn't say the rain washed off the footprints, right, if they had been made in mud, or in snow or something, then we would say wash away.
They got washed away by the rain.
Yes, I love it. And then what about wash down?
This is totally different, right?
Right. Yeah, it's crazy how many phrasal verbs there are with wash.
You add a preposition it becomes a totally different meaning.
So, this means to drink something after eating.
So, I might say I ate a handful of pretzels and washed them down with a glass of beer.
Yeah. It's a casual way of saying that you needed liquid to consume the food, right, right?
Or you're just saying, I drank something after that.
Exactly, right? You washed it down.
I love it. And then wash over.
Do we talk about that one yet?
I don't think so. No, this one's next.
And there are two meanings for this.
So the first meaning, this is kind of a crazy one because the meanings are complete opposites.
Oh no. So first, it means to affect someone strongly.
So for example, waves of nausea washed over him, and that means he was very nauseated, right wasn't feeling well.
I'd always say waves of this.
Or waves of anger or irritation might wash over someone.
It means they're being very affected by it.
Oh my gosh and then the second meaning literally, I've never thought about this before Aubrey, but the second meaning is literally the exact opposite.
We're going to have to do a separate episode maybe in a couple months just about these two, yeah, the two meanings wash over.
We could find a few other phrasal verbs that do this, where it's the exact same verbs with opposite meanings.
This one, the opposite meaning is to happen to someone without affecting them.
For example, if someone insulted me, I might say, I let her insults wash over me.
That means I didn't let them affect me at all.
I just totally ignored them.
How would our listeners know from the context which one it is to you?
I think just the context, right?
What are they saying?
Because you wouldn't say that You know, if you're talking about nausea, right?
Waves of nausea washed over him.
That's not something that you wouldn't care about, wouldn't let affect you.
That clearly meant you were being affected by that.
And then insults. This is sort of the tricky one, because it could be that you let it affect you really strongly, right?
Her insults washed over me.
Meaning they really affected me a lot.
So it's all gonna be about intonation, I think.
I think there's context here, too.
Sure, it's intonation.
It's what do you know about that person and what their attitude is right?
Are they easily hurt or not?
Yeah, I think I think the verb let gives us a little bit of a clue.
I allowed Something to just not impact me Interesting because I could say, you know I let her insults wash over me meaning they didn't effect but then if it's like I you know, I let her insults Well, I agree.
I wouldn't say I let her insults wash over me if they really affected me I might say, like, her insults really washed over me.
And then I'm saying they, like, did affect me.
So, it's kind of the words around it.
And then the other piece I would say is body language.
I think someone might tend to shrug their shoulders like they don't care when they say that.
I let her insults wash over me.
Good point. So, you're hearing it in your intonation and there probably would be body language as well that you're saying, like, nah, I didn't care.
It didn't bother me.
Ooh, I love the idea of another episode in the future of taking two or three of these phrasal verbs that have exactly the opposite meanings.
Yeah, let's do it. Hit follow guys so you don't miss that episode.
That's going to be interesting.
This will be a really good one, alright good stuff.
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Okay Aubrey, we are back from break and here in our signature role play, you are attending a dinner party at my house.
Well that's good because I love to host dinner parties.
Perfect, because I love to attend dinner parties.
I like to host too.
Perfect. All right, I'll start us.
I'm just going to wash up.
I was painting our kitchen today and just noticed I still have paint on my hands that I need to wash off.
We've been meaning to paint, it's such a big job though.
Waves of anxiety just wash over me whenever I think about tackling that project.
Oh. Also, I need to take some ibuprofen.
Can I trouble you for a glass of water to wash it down with?
Of course, I'll grab one for you.
Nice. Yeah, we used a lot of them, but pretty natural conversation at the same time, right?
Absolutely, that's what's tricky or what's interesting about phrasal verbs.
They have such different meanings that native speakers as we're using them, we're not even really thinking about how they're related to wash or that wash is part of it because the meanings are so different.
So, you might hear them all in one conversation like this.
Yeah, exactly, so let's go through it.
So here you first said, I'm just gonna wash up.
So, do you mean you're gonna wash dishes or wash your car or what do you say?
Yeah, you don't have to go from context, right?
I mean I'm gonna wash my hands.
I'm just gonna wash up means I'm going to wash my hands.
But if I, if it's after dinner and I'm offered – or especially if it's at my house, I think I'd say I'm going to wash up.
I wouldn't say that at someone else's house, I'd be like, can I help clean up?
Right. That's really interesting too.
There's kind of like a, like a homey meaning to wash up, right?
Yeah, it definitely implies like, you're cleaning your own mess or your kitchen.
Right, you wouldn't offer to help at someone else's house saying like, can I wash up it, or can I help you wash up?
No, that's not how I would say it.
Yeah, it's subtle, but it's interesting.
It's important to know.
And then you said, and just notice I still have paint on my hands that I need to wash off, okay.
Right. So, I'm saying I'm going to go wash up.
Like, I'm saying like, oh, I need to wash my hands before I eat, and then I say I've realized I have paint on my hands that I need to wash off.
I could even say scrub off, because when you have paint on your hands it isn't usually just like rinse really easy.
It's like you're going to have to wash it off.
Right, scrub, yeah, scrub your hands for for sure.
Fascinating. Then you said, we've been meaning to paint.
It's just such a big job though.
Waves of anxiety wash over me whenever I think about tackling that project.
So is this kind of the more serious one where it actually takes you over or do you just let it go and you don't care?
Yeah. This is interesting because this is both in the vocabulary and the way you set it.
If you go back and listen to Lindsay's Intonation.
I think first of all, if you're saying waves of anxiety, you're not going to be like, oh, those waves of anxiety didn't bother me at all.
No, you would say this differently, you would choose different vocabulary, right?
Anxiety on its own is already heavy and then also your intonation.
You were like, waves of anxiety wash over me whenever I think about so we could hear the seriousness in the way you said it.
Yeah. And it's also just a common conversation topic you might have with friends that are homeowners, oh yeah, I know I need to redo my kitchen and this and that, and you're always talking about things you need to, at least in my circle, people talking about things they need to fix in their house.
They want to upgrade their kitchens, their bathrooms, that sort of thing.
Yeah, but maybe you're using the word stress and someone's asking if something's stressing you out.
You're like, nah, I'm just letting that stress wash over me.
And that's when you're saying like, I'm not letting it affect me at all.
But you would use a serious word, maybe stress instead of anxiety.
Interesting. Well, there's a lot of subtleties here today Aubrey.
And then you said I need to take some ibuprofen.
Can I trouble you for a glass of water to wash it down with?
Yeah. So this is that you just need liquid to wash something down.
We'll often say this with medicine, food as well, but I kind of love this little bonus of saying, can I trouble you for something when you're asking for something?
I do this a lot. I went to you like, can I have a glass of water?
Like I often will try to be more polite and I'll say it this way.
Can I trouble you for a glass of water?
Right. You might feel like like a kid might say, can I have a glass of water right just very matter of fact but direct all you might want to be a little more polite a little more delicate about it right right and this is one of those options one of the ways that we asked politely for something yes guys go to episode 2408 when you finish up today the episode is called effect or effect how to avoid this common English mistake where we battled battled it out around those two words right the very common mistake for our listeners yes and we gave you pro tips of how to know which to use, right?
One's spelled with an A, one's with an E.
They sound the same, so this is very tricky.
Don't miss that episode to find out which to use.
Yes, I love it. And I think a connection moment here is about, kind of remembering the phrases we used as kids in our households.
You started the episode today by asking me that.
That's a conversation that you could have with a native speaker.
And that could evoke positive memories for people for sure.
Absolutely, right. Anytime you talk about childhood like that, especially something very simple like this, right?
What did your say, to call you in for dinner, to let you know dinner was ready?
It'd be interesting.
Everyone's probably going to have a different answer.
Yeah. So start a conversation about that.
Why not? And hit follow so that you're ready for that upcoming episode coming up in the next few months about comparing phrasal verbs that are exactly the same, but have opposite meanings.
I'm excited. Yes, that's going to be a good one.
Hit follow, guys. All right, good stuff.
See you next time, Aubrey.
Have a good one. Awesome.
You too. Bye. Thanks for listening to all ears english would you like to know your english level take our two minute quiz go to all ears english dot com forward slash fluency score and if you believe in connection not perfection then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything See you next time!
