Top 30 Phrasal Verbs That Confuse English Learners

One thing that is holding a lot of English learners back from speaking English fluently is they're not studying phrasal verbs enough. In today's English lesson I'm going to clear up some of the confusion when it comes to these 30 phrasal verbs. I'm going to show you exactly how to use them and I'm going to show you why when you add a preposition to these verbs it can change the meaning entirely. Native English speakers use phrasal verbs consistently all of the time while they're speaking in their conversations so you need to study these to upgrade your English if you want to sound fluent. Let's get started. I'll teach you these 30 important phrasal verbs. 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. 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 take off the take off time. So usually when you go to the airport your ticket has a boarding time and a take off time and the take off 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. I'm running out of time. 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. Turn it up please. 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 seven 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. 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. 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. 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 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. Together sometime. It's important to learn some more phrasal 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. Cheer up sweetie. 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. 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 say that people have a good relationship because they get along really well or if you want to say they have a bad relationship and they typically fight you can say they don't get along. We use break up in two common ways. If we want to 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. I'm gonna 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. 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 turn down. When you turn down something you are refusing or saying no to an offer. I'm sorry I'm going to 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. It means they're trying to 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 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. That 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 want to 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. You could give up. Give up. 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 and you could say oh I'm sorry our phone call got cut off. That means it got disconnected or 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. Make sure to practice these phrasal verbs in your everyday conversations. I'm sure you'll come across them more than once now that you've learned them. I want you to comment which phrasal verbs are most confusing from this lesson and maybe I can work on them in further lessons or I can respond to your comment. And I love teaching phrasal verbs because I really truly believe it's essential to learn phrasal verbs in order to become a fluent English speaker. So make sure to try out one of the videos on screen that I'm going to have next because I have so many phrasal verb lessons here. Thanks again so much for watching this lesson. I'll see you guys on the next video. Bye!