20 High Frequency Phrasal Verbs in English

You want to upgrade your English by learning phrasal verbs. This is a really good strategy because phrasal verbs are used in everyday English conversations. And in today's lesson, I'm going to teach you 20 what I call high value phrasal verbs because these phrasal verbs are the ones that English speakers actually use in their advanced conversations. So you'll hear them come up very, very frequently. And when you use them, they'll upgrade your English very nicely as well. I'm Kayla, and if you're new, welcome. In this lesson, I'm going to teach you phrasal verbs, and every week I teach you about a different English topic to help upgrade your English to advanced. Make sure to visit englishwithkayla.com to check out my membership, to learn more about these lessons, and to have me, Kayla, be your English teacher. Now let's get started with the lesson. If you learn this phrasal verb to back down, you might also hear this phrase, never back down. Never back down. This phrase, never back down, it means the same as never give up or never stop fighting. So when we say that somebody is backing down, it means they're stopping an argument and they're admitting they're wrong or they're physically fighting for something and they finally just back off. They back down. But we will not back down. If you are a really good negotiator, maybe you go in to buy a car and you do not back down on your price. You say, this is my price. I'm firm. I'm not backing down. And if the salesperson refuses to give you the price, then you just leave and you go somewhere else and you try to get that car for that same price. So when we use this phrasal verb, back down, say, oh, I'm not going to back down from this argument. That means you're not going to give up or admit that you're wrong. You don't back down. Speaking of arguments, this next phrasal verb is to blow over. When we say that something blows over, it means it kind of disappears, especially when we're talking about an argument or a problem or some drama. Maybe you have a fight with your friend and it's not the biggest fight in the world. It was just something really minor and neither of you really apologize, but you kind of forget about it. You could say, well, we kind of just blew over the situation. Like it's not a big deal. It'll all blow over. Or maybe you're worried that you might have offended someone and your friend says, well, don't worry too much. I think it's going to blow over. This means the problem is just going to kind of disappear because it's so minor. Yeah, things blow over. Sometimes we talk about the weather blowing over, meaning it looks dark and gray outside. We'll say, ah, I think this is going to blow over in just a little bit, meaning it might rain or storm for just a short amount of time, but nothing very catastrophic or dangerous. And soon it will be sunny or nice enough to go outside. It'll blow over. We use bring up the phrasal verb to talk about bringing up a topic, which means mentioning it or introducing it. Or sometimes we say it brought up emotions to bring up emotions. So maybe you see a movie and it's about death and it brings up some sad emotions that you have about someone who recently died in your life recently. So all that brought up some emotions. So that means it introduced the emotions into your head. It made you think about it. I'm glad you brought up the bylaws. When we say we're bringing up something in conversation, it means we're talking about something. Maybe it's a light topic of conversation, meaning something happy, something easy to discuss that wouldn't offend anyone. Or you could say, I'm sorry, I have to bring up this tough conversation or I have to bring up this tough subject, meaning it's going to be something that brings up a lot of emotions, sad, angry, or maybe it's just kind of hard to talk about because you don't want to offend someone. So when you're bringing up something in conversation, you're introducing the topic. Bring up everything you have on Spider-Man. This next phrasal verb, it's definitely one that you'll hear in everyday English to butt in. Now, when you butt in, it means you kind of rudely interrupt. Sometimes we say, I'm so sorry, I have to butt in real quick. This means there's a conversation going to people are talking, but you have something that you need to interrupt and add. Did you just butt in on the investigative team again? Children oftentimes butt into conversations, especially when two adults are trying to talk and they want a lot of attention and say, hey, don't butt in right now. Just wait your turn to talk. So we use the phrasal verb to butt in to mean the exact same as to interrupt and typically rudely, but sometimes we can apologize in advance for butting in. In English, you'll definitely hear people say, I got sick last week, but you'll also hear this phrasal verb pretty frequently as well. I came down with something last week. To come down with an illness means the same as to get sick. So it's like the beginning of your sickness. And typically with this phrasal verb, we say, I came down with something. And this phrasal verb just implies that you were sick, or you could say the specific illness. Like I came down with a sore throat. I came down with the stomach flu. I came down with a cold. So you can see this phrasal verb is pretty specifically used to say that you got sick. Angela has come down with mononucleosis. Now, in the moment that you are becoming sick, you can say, I think I'm coming down with something, or I think I'm coming down with a cold. This just implies it's starting to begin. You're not feeling great, but you're not totally sick yet. This next phrasal verb sounds a lot like to come down with, but it doesn't have anything to do with being sick. When we say that something comes up, it means that something happens unexpectedly that makes us have to kind of change our plans. Like, sorry, I couldn't meet for dinner last night. Something came up unexpectedly. That's how we would use this phrasal verb. Something unexpected came up. Or maybe you're apologizing to your husband or your wife for being late at the end of the day, getting home from work. You might say, oh, I'm so sorry I'm late. So many things came up at work today. This means like it was a lot of unexpected events or meetings or people that needed your help. Another phrasal verb that means to interrupt is to cut in. You might say, if anybody needs to cut in at any point, go ahead and just talk. If you're leading a meeting, this means like you're not interrupting. I'm welcoming your thoughts, ideas, and I'm welcoming everyone to speak during this presentation. I'll cut you in. Or maybe if someone was being rude, you could also use this phrasal verb. You could say, well, I was about to get to that part before you cut in. This means before you interrupted. I'm gonna cut you in. To drop by. So, if someone visits very quickly and oftentimes informally, meaning they just text you or call you right before they're coming over or they don't tell you at all, they are just dropping by. That means someone comes and visits you. Maybe it's at work or maybe it's at your house. If you just had a new baby and somebody drops by without giving you any warning, it can come off as very rude and inconsiderate because usually, you know, your house is kind of a mess. You're not sleeping very well, so you're not used to people just coming into your house to see you. They drop by to see me. If you have a really close friend or family member, you might not mind if they just drop by unexpectedly. You might say, oh, they just drop by anytime. I love to see them. So, this means, you know, you're not worried about how your house looks. You're not worried about tidying up because they're such a good friend. They can just drop by anytime. Thanks for dropping by. Once in a while, if you are by someone's place of work and you think they might have time, you might text them, hey, I might drop by later today. Could you come and have lunch? So, it just means you're going to briefly visit them either at their home or work or wherever it may be. Sorry for dropping by unannounced. Drop off. So, we use drop off to talk about delivering something or someone. Here's what I mean by this. I dropped off cookies. You might say, do you mind if you drop off my kids at school tomorrow? This means, like, you would come and get them and bring them to school. Yeah, I don't mind. Or could you drop off some milk tomorrow? Because I don't have time to go to the grocery store. This is asking someone if they would deliver it to your house. Drop the kids off at school. If you get in an Uber, a Lyft, or a taxi, you might tell the driver once they get close to your destination, you might say, hey, you can just drop us off right here. This means, like, we'll get out of the car. You can basically deliver us here. So, typically, when we're dropping something off, we're delivering it in a car. That doesn't necessarily always have to be the case, but it's just typical here in the United States. A really tricky phrasal verb to use that's so common that you definitely should study is to end up. So, when we say that something ends up, it's talking about the final result of a situation. So, for instance, maybe you waited in line for a really long time. You saw the line was really long to get some food or something, and you might say, we ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes. So, the final result of your waiting was 45 minutes in line. Ended up in hell. A lot of times, we are surprised at the way that things end up, and we use the phrasal verb really commonly here as well. So, we ended up having so much fun last night. So, maybe you weren't really planning to do anything exciting or fun, or maybe you went to an event with the expectation that it wasn't going to be very fun. So, you were surprised. You could say, it ended up being very fun, actually. This would be a pretty common way to use this phrasal verb, to end up. You will end up alone. Let's talk about the phrasal verb to fall apart. This phrasal verb has a literal meaning of something breaking into pieces. Like, for instance, if you've ever bought a really cheap toy, your kid will play with it and it will just start falling apart, like the pieces start falling off. Or, if you've had a storm go through your area, a pretty bad one, maybe parts of your fence or your house will just fall apart because it's so strong, the wind is. Now, we talk about to fall apart, meaning you kind of break down emotionally or become very upset. So, if you say, I just fell apart after such a long day, maybe you cried, maybe you just felt emotionally just sad or upset or you just lost control completely. Oh, everything is just falling apart. If you want to talk about your day falling apart, it just means everything started going really wrong. I just feel like my life's falling apart. Have you ever had to fill in for someone and give a speech? The phrasal verb to fill in means to replace. So, if you fill in for someone at work, it means you're doing their job for the day because maybe they're gone temporarily. Dr. Shepard, I'm filling in for Dr. Bailey today. If we're talking about filling in something with color, it means there's no color in the area. Maybe we're painting and we'll say, oh, we have to fill in that area too, like the wall. It means you're filling it with color. Already filled in crossword puzzle. Or if a space feels empty, you might want to fill it in with furniture, meaning just, you need to put something in there to kind of hold the place or to fill it up. Do you get along with your coworkers or do you find them to be annoying? To get along. This phrasal verb means to have a good relationship, to have fun even. Usually, if you say, oh yeah, I get along with my coworkers, it means they're pleasant. You have good conversations. You don't have to be best friends to get along, but maybe just everything goes pretty well. You never have any drama or fights if you get along with people. Do I get along with my coworkers? I love to-do lists. I love having a list of all the tasks that I need to complete. And sometimes I have a list that's separate from my daily and weekly to-do list. That's things that I will get around to. So it's tasks that aren't necessarily super urgent. Maybe they're kind of important, but I will get around to them when I have time. So when you say I finally got around to doing this, it means you finally have time or you finally feel like you have the effort or the motivation to do something that you've either been delaying or putting off, kind of procrastinating. I didn't get around to getting those cookbooks. For me, I have a lot of house projects that I'm trying to get around to. Maybe it's just organizing a closet that's really messy. Maybe it's fixing something that's broken or replacing something that's old and ugly. So I have a lot of house projects that I need to get around to. This means I need to find the motivation and the time and the effort to do them. I'll get around to it. A lot of times when people are debating or fighting over something, finally one person might just give in. This doesn't necessarily mean that they believe the other person, but they're just like, okay, fine, you're right. Like I'll stop arguing, whatever. So sometimes if a person wants to do something and you don't want to do that thing, but you finally just say, fine, we'll do it. You're kind of giving in to their opinion or you're giving into their side. A lot of times when our kids are like, please, can I have a piece of candy? You might say, I have to give in. Here we go. Like it means you're just stopping, you're resisting and you're stopping arguing or you're just kind of like letting it happen. You're giving in. This next phrasal verb, it's pretty vague when we use it in conversation, but English speakers would always know what you're implying or talking about here. So if we say that someone is going through something, it means they're going through something difficult. They're having a difficult time in their life. Maybe they are experiencing challenges at work. Maybe they just lost their job. Maybe they have been seriously ill or sick, or maybe they had a family member be sick or die even. So we'll say, oh, they're going through something or they're going through a breakup. This means they just got out of a relationship. You're going through a divorce. So if you want to just politely like warn someone that someone's having a challenging time in their life, you might use this phrasal verb. Don't worry. They're just going through something like they're not actually mad at you or anything. They're just having a tough time. He's going through puberty. A common question in English is what's the holdup? What's the holdup? Or if you say, sorry, I'm holding everyone up or you're holding the line up. This phrasal verb means you're delaying it. You're slowing it down. So if you're at the grocery store and someone starts, you know, kind of giving the person a bunch of coupons at the register and maybe they bought some weird things, you could say, oh, they're holding up the whole line, meaning they're delaying the line. They're making it go slow by adding all these extra things. Another common way we use this phrasal verb is we say, I'm sorry, I got held up. I got held up in a meeting or I got held up in traffic. This just means you got delayed doing these things and you're apologizing. If you're familiar with soccer, you might know at the beginning of the game, there is a kickoff. This means it's the start of the game. Oftentimes in English, we also say, hey, we're going to kick off this project. We're going to kick off this meeting. We're going to kick off this event. This just means you're going to start it. You're going to start it usually in an exciting way or in a more meaningful way. Like we kicked off the meeting at 9am with a big speech or whatever it might be. What time's this party kicking off? When you want to say that someone is choosing something carefully, use the phrasal verb pick out. I'm going to pick out a really nice outfit for you. This means I'm going to pick you some clothes that will look good on you. I'm going to be very intentional and careful about my choices here. Or you might say to your kids, hey, pick out what you want for lunch. Like look through the fridge, look through the cabinets and decide what food you would eat. You're picking out my clothes now. There's two ways that we use the phrasal verb turn up. So first we say, hey, where did you turn up from? This means where did you come from? Where did you appear from unexpectedly? And like this question is like saying like, I didn't know you were going to come here. Like, how did you get here? Like, why are you here? That's kind of what you're implying by asking this question. Hey, when did you turn up or where did you turn up from? I don't know where he's going to turn up next. And the other way we use this phrasal verb is to turn up the volume to increase it. Or if your phone is super dark, you might need to turn up the brightness. So we can either mean that something is appearing or something is increasing. Thank you so much for watching this English lesson with me. I hope you take these 20 phrasal verbs, add them to your vocabulary. Go study more with me at englishwithkayla.com. You'll find this lesson with resources that go along with it and more every single week. And I can be your teacher there as well. If you're in the mood for another English lesson, make sure to check out one of the ones on screen. I'll see you guys there. Goodbye.