Hi.
Welcome to engVid. I'm Adam. In today's video we're going
to look at phrasal verbs. Well, one phrasal verb in
particular using the verb "break". So, again, just to refresh our memories: A
phrasal verb is a verb and a preposition that when put together sometimes have completely
different meanings than the two words, and sometimes they have
multiple meanings. So we're going to
start with: "break". First of all: "break" means to basically
make somebody whole not whole. So you can break your bone, means it's, like,
snap in half, or you break your glass. You drop the glass on the floor and it breaks,
it comes into pieces, so that's what "break" means. And most of these words you can a little bit
guess their meanings, some of them you will not guess at all. We're going to start
with "break out". Okay, "break out" has a few meanings,
and we have the noun "breakout". Okay? "To break out", so the first meaning we're
going to look at is a rash, r-a-s-h. Actually I'll write
this down for you. If you break out in a rash, it basically means
you ate something that you're allergic to. So, some people, for example,
are allergic to chocolate. So they eat a piece
of chocolate, or... By accident and suddenly on their skin
they see little, red dots everywhere. Okay? That is called a rash. It's itchy, it's not very pretty,
but it's an allergic reaction. So you break out in
a rash, usually. Okay? That's one. The same thing, on the same idea,
when we talk about a disease. So, a disease or a virus, for example, starts
somewhere and then it just breaks out. It spreads. So: "to break out"
means to spread. So, some diseases, like for example, SARS, I
don't know if everybody remembers that disease, it started in one little place, and then it
suddenly broke out and travelled all over the world, and it was an epidemic,
and everybody was really scared. Another meaning of "break out" and similar
to the idea of spread, when we talk about artists, especially like actors or musicians,
they break out, it means they suddenly become very popular or very famous. So, some singers or some bands,
they make an album, for example. And, you know, the sales are so-so and
not that many people hear about them. Then their next album, so-so, maybe
a little bit better, maybe not. Their third album suddenly they break out,
suddenly everybody knows who they are, they're very famous, everybody's buying their album,
so we also call this their "breakout album". That's the album that spread
their name and made them famous. Okay? And lastly: "to break
out" means to escape. So if you break out of jail,
that means you escape from jail. So a little bit like,
you know, you have... You're handcuffed or you have that ball with
a chain on your leg, so you break it and you get out, so you escape. You break out of jail. So that's "break out". "Break in", a few meanings. One, and again, "break-in"
is a noun with the hyphen. "To break in" basically means to
enter illegally and using force. So, if someone has a break in in their house,
means that the burglar broke the lock or the window, or whatever and came
in and stole their things. So: "to break in" means
to enter forcefully. Usually we use it with "break into", you break
into someone's house, you break into the office, etc. But "break into" has another
meaning, we'll get to that. So that's "break in". Another meaning of "break in": "to break in"
means to make something basically more suited to your style, to your comfort. Okay? So think about jeans. When you buy your first pair of jeans or when
you buy a new pair of jeans, I should say, they're a little bit stiff. You know? They're not that comfortable, you're not sitting
too well in them, so you do a few squats. Okay? Or you do some stretches, or you put it in the
laundry, and after a few washes, it becomes a little bit softer, a little bit more
flexible, so now your jeans are broken in. You've broken in your jeans. If you take a baseball glove-okay?-this is
a very common thing that you need to break in. When you buy a new baseball glove it's very
stiff, so if somebody throws you the ball, you can't catch it because
you can't close the glove. So, what do you do? You take some oil, you put it inside the glove,
take a baseball, put it in, close it tight, tie it with some rope, put it on the street,
drive over it with your car, slip it under your bed and sleep on
it for a few days. After a few days it's nice, and soft, and
very flexible and you can catch the ball. So, that's how you break
in a baseball glove. You can also break in a
person in the same way. Somebody new comes to your office to work
in your company, but, you know, they don't really know everything about the office, they
don't know the company culture, they don't really know anybody,
they don't have friends. So you help break them in, you show them how
everything works, you introduce them to other people in the company, and soon enough they're
comfortable, they're working like everybody else. "Break up", I think
everybody knows this one. You break up with your boyfriend,
you break up with your girlfriend. Okay? And you go through a "break-up", basically means
you go through the process of separating, splitting up. Okay? "Break up" can also mean to
separate into smaller pieces. So if you think about a big
company, a conglomerate... This is a good word to know. A "conglomerate" is a huge company that
actually owns a lot of smaller companies. Okay? In Asia you have a lot of these
conglomerates, they're huge. But let's say you want... You're the owner of one of these conglomerates
and you want to split it up, you want to make some money, or you don't want all the work,
you want to relax a little bit, so you break up the company into pieces, and then sell
each one individually, make tons of money. You can break up anything into smaller
pieces that are easier to handle. Okay, sometimes
we talk about TV. You're watching TV or even on Skype if you're
on the internet and the connection is not good, like somebody freezes and
whatever, so they're not... It's not a very good connection, so you can
say to somebody: "Oh, you're breaking up." The connection is breaking,
it's not smooth and flowing. Okay? So that's another very
common use of "break up". "Break off" basically means to separate a
piece from something else, to make not whole. So if there's a tree and it's hanging
over your driveway, and it's, like... The leaves are falling on your car, you go to
the tree, you grab the branch and you just break it off, and it's no more branch,
no more leaves, no more problem. Okay? You can also break off, means like interrupt,
especially when we're talking about speech. So I'm talking to somebody and
then I hear a large crash, so I... In the middle of the speech I break
off the speech to go deal with that. Right? So you interrupt something, especially
speech when we're using that. Now, I want to be
careful with "for". Technically, when you "break for lunch", for
example, or "brake for a child on the street", the "for" goes with the
object, not with the "break". It's not a phrasal verb. So: "break for lunch"
means take a break. Why? For lunch, because you're
going to go have lunch. So be careful. This is not a phrasal verb,
so I put it in brackets. Okay? Let's go to this side: "break
down", a few meanings here as well. If something breaks down,
it means it stops working. So when you... Especially when we're talking about machines,
a machine breaks down or your car broke down, it means it stopped working, there was a
problem with it, you probably need to fix it. When you want to
analyze something... Let's say you have a problem and it's a pretty big
problem and you can't deal with it because... Because it's too big,
so you break it down. You separate it into smaller pieces, and then
you analyze each piece by itself, so that way you can fix the
whole problem. This is what scientists do. They have a problem, they break it down into
individual parts, they assess each one, they fix the problem altogether. Now, when we talk about a "breakdown", again,
it's the situation of something not working. The most common use is when we talk
about, like, a mental breakdown. If someone has a mental breakdown, it means
their brain, not stopped working because, you know, they're still alive, they can still
do things, but emotionally they just can't do anything; they can't go to work, they can't
talk to people, they just don't know what to do with their lives, they're very distressed,
very depressed, etc., so they have a mental breakdown. Maybe they go to a doctor, they fix it,
they get back on their feet and go on. So: "break into" I mentioned, you can break
into something, means enter it forcefully, but you can also break
into an industry. Okay, so let's say I'm a photographer
and I want to make money... Make a career as a photographer, so I take a lot
of pictures, but nobody's really interested, nobody's really buying. So finally I go to one magazine and I show
my portfolio, and they say: "Wow, this is really good stuff. Okay, come work for us." So now I've basically entered this industry,
the photography industry, I've broken in, I have my start, and now I can build
my career from that point on. So it's still enter, but it's not a
physical place and it's not forcibly. Okay? It's an industry, it's an idea. "Break away", so "break away"
means to separate from a group. Okay? So, in sports especially you see this, you have
a lot of, like, basketball players, everybody is in this area trying to get the ball, and
then one guy steals the ball and he runs. And he's over here, and the rest
of the players are all over there. So he's on a breakaway, and then he goes and
slam dunks, does whatever he wants, because nobody's around him. He has separated himself from
the group, he has broken away. This is also what happens in politics, especially
when you talk about "breakaway" as an adjective. Okay? So, the sports player goes on a "breakaway", but
a political group, we talk about a "breakaway party". So let's say you have... Okay, let's look at
America, for example. In the United States you have the Republican
Party, and then you have the breakaway party called the Tea Party. So, the Tea Party used to be... Are people from the Republicans who decided
to go their own way and separate from the main Republican group. Okay? So that's "break away". And "breakeven". "Breakeven" basically
means not gain... Not gain, not loss. So, when you reach a "breakeven
point" it means you're at neutral. If you invest some money, you invested $10,000
and after a year, you know, you're in stocks and your stocks went down, your stocks went
up, but after a year you're at breakeven. That means you didn't make any money, you
didn't lose any money, although you technically did because of inflation and all that
stuff, but that's a whole other lesson. So: "breakeven". Now, if you have any questions about any of
these phrasal verbs-I hope they were pretty clear-please go to www.engvid.com, there's
a forum, you can ask me questions there. There's also a quiz where you can
practice using all of these in sentences. And I hope you like this lesson. Please like it for me and subscribe to my
channel, and come back for more great videos. See you.
