Welcome to this one hour English vocabulary
lesson. Today you're going to learn the 50 most common phrasal verbs in English. Because
this video is very long, what I've done is I've divided it into five different parts. So you'll
learn 10 phrasal verbs. You'll understand what that phrasal verb means, how to use it in your
speech, and you'll see some practical example sentences. So you'll learn 10 phrasal verbs,
and then you'll complete a quiz. So you'll repeat that five times. So by the end of
this lesson, you'll complete five quizzes, and you'll learn 50 new phrasal verbs. How awesome
is that! of course I'm Jennifer. Welcome back to JForrest English training, your place to become
a fluent and confident English speaker. Now let's get started.
Number 1, to
ache for. This is a
very nice romantic phrasal verb. Now we really use this in the context of
a romantic relationship.
So make sure you use that appropriately. And ache for something or someone
is when you really
really want that something or someone. For example, he was lonely and aching for
love. So
this is perhaps a little more of a poetic phrasal verb. You will probably hear it in novels,
stories, movies, TV. He was aching for love. So maybe you won't use that in your vocabulary, but
you'll likely hear it in romance movies or romance novels. Now you may be more likely to use ache
for
someone. Let's say your husband is overseas on a business trip and he'll be gone for
two
or three weeks. You might say, I'm aching for my husband. So if you're talking to your friends
or
family, even your colleagues, you can say oh, I'm really aching for my husband. He's been gone
for
two weeks already. Number two, to beef up. This is a fun one. When you beef something up,
you
make it stronger or more important. Now we do use this in the context of bodybuilders, and they
can beef themselves up, become more muscular. So you can use that in a fitness context. But,
we also use this in more of a business context, perhaps surprisingly. Because you might say,
I need to beef up my resume. I need to make my resume stronger, or more important. I need to
beef up my communication skills, for example. Number three, to make up. And in this context,
we're talking about to make up with someone, with someone. To make up with someone is when you
forgive someone after an argument or a dispute. In a family context, young kids fight a lot,
right,
and older kids too. But you might say to your son, your daughter, you need to make up with
your sister. You need to make up with your brother. You need to make up with more cousin,
or a friend. And you list a specific person. Which means you need to forgive that person,
stop being angry at that person, stop fighting with that person. So we definitely use this
in
a social context or family context. But you can absolutely use this in a professional context.
Coworkers fight as well. There are disagreements in companies. So you might say to one coworker,
Sally, you need to make up with Mark. You work on the same team. You have to get along,
you
need to make up with each other. Number four, to nail down. This is when you
understand
the exact details of something or you get a firm decision on something. So let's
say you're
planning a conference and you have a general idea of the conference. It will take place
in summer.
It will be on this general topic or theme. But when is the exact date. What specific
topics.
Who specifically will be the keynote speaker. Who specifically will be presenting. Who
will you
hire to cater the conference. You need to nail down those details. So you need to either
understand the exact details or you need to make a firm decision on who is going to cater,
when the
conference will exactly take place. So that's a very useful phrasal verb. And you can
use it in a
business context or a social context. Number five, to open up. When you open up
to someone, you talk
very freely about your feelings or your emotions, things that make
you quite vulnerable. Things you
probably don't share with everybody. For example, after
years, she finally opened up about his
death. So for many years, there was this tragic death
perhaps, and she didn't really talk about
it. She didn't talk about her feelings. About the
death. But then after a year, she opened up. She
started talking freely about how she felt,
the circumstances, how she's dealing with it, those
types of things, her inner feelings and
emotions. Now notice I didn't use 'to someone'. I could say,
she opened up to her family about
his death. So you'll have 'about' and then the specific topic,
and 'to' and the specific people.
You'll commonly hear people say, I've never opened up to
anybody like this before. If someone says
that to you, they're basically saying they feel very
comfortable around you. They feel like
they can share their inner thoughts, feelings, emotions.
And that's a very positive thing. It
shows you're have a very close relationship.
Number six, to slip into something. Now this is
when you quickly put on a piece of
clothing. So this is a very specific phrasal verb. It's only
used with clothing. Now, for example,
this shirt is quite pretty, isn't it? But let's be honest,
it's not the most comfortable shirt.
So after I'm done recording this video, I'm going to slip
into a t shirt. I'm going to
put on a t-shirt. Or if it's first thing in the morning and you're in
your housecoat,
but then you hear your doorbell, you might quickly slip into some sweatpants
and
answer the door. So it's simply another way to say put on. Number seven, to stand by something.
When you stand by something. It's used to show that you still support or believe something.
So I might say, we stand by our opinion that interest rates need to increase. So
that's
my opinion. That's my belief. Interest rates need to increase. And I stand by that.
I still
support that. I still believe that. So you'll hear this a lot from people in power,
politicians,
executives in business, will have an opinion, have a belief and then they'll state,
I stand
by that to let you know they still believe that specific opinion. Do you stand by that?
I stand
by that? Yes, the reason simply is that. We also use this with 'stand by
someone'. When you stand
by someone, it means that you support someone, usually when something
negative has happened.
So let's say that your coworker was accused of stealing from the company
but you know
your coworker didn't do it. You might say, I stand by her. I stand by her, which means
you're willing to support her in this difficult time. Number eight, to wind down. To wind down.
This is an excellent phrasal verb because it means to relax after a busy or stressful day.
So you might say, I always read at the end of the day to wind down. To help me wind down,
I always read at the end of the day. Or I go for a walk after work to wind down. So
it just
means to relax. But it's another way of saying it. And it implies that you were very busy
or
stressed out, to wind down. Number nine, to zone out. This is when you stop paying attention
for
a short period of time. Now we've all done this, especially when we were kids in school and
your teachers are talking, and you just zone out. Now generally people zone out because
they don't
have interest in a particular topic. For example, whenever people talk about sports,
I zone out.
I just stopped listening. And I started thinking about something else in
my own head. And I'm
not listening to the conversation about sports. I zoned out. I
stopped paying attention.
But then when the conversation changes, I'll pay attention again.
So it's always
for that short period of time. Number 10, to turn in. This is a very useful
phrasal verb
because it simply means to go to bed. It's another way of saying to go to bed,
and it's very common.
So of course you can say I'm tired, I'm going to bed. But you can also say,
I'm tired. I'm going
to turn in. I'm going to turn in. And it's really commonly used,
so I'd suggest you use it. You can
use it as a suggestion. Hey, it's getting late and you
have a job interview tomorrow. You should
turn in. You should go to bed. Or you can use it in
question form as well. What time did you turn
in? What time did you go to bed?
Are you ready for your first quiz? So here are the questions. Of
course, hit pause. Take as much time as you need
and when you're ready, hit play and I'll share the
answers. So you can go ahead and hit pause now.
Here are the answers. Go ahead and hit
pause
and figure out how you did.
How did you do on the quiz? Make sure
you share your score in the comments below and let's continue on with
the next group of phrasal verbs.
Phrasal verb number one, to act on. This simply
means to take action,
so to act. But you act on specific information, advice or recommendations
that you've received.
For example, the manager acted on the findings of the report. So of course
in this report,
there's lots of information and advice and if you act on that information. The
manager acted on the
findings of the report. Or in a meeting you might suggest to your coworkers,
we need to act on the
recommendations. We need to take action. Outside of the workplace, you
might say, we need to act on
the advice from our financial analysts. So they gave you some advice,
you need to act
on it. Number two, bargain for. To bargain for, this is when you expect something
to happen, but
that something is usually negative. So you expect something negative to
happen. Now,
notice the sentence structure here because we most commonly use this phrasal verb in
the negative
form. We hadn't bargained for such a high interest rate. So we didn't expect. Or you
could say,
we hadn't bargained for so many people at the conference. So this is a great expression
that you
can use. But I recommend using it in the negative. Number three, opt in. When you opt
into something,
