Phrasal Verbs - Expressions with 'PICK'

hello everyone and welcome to maple leaf ESL my name is Andrew and thank you for joining me here in the classroom today for today's lesson I want to take a look at phrasal verbs that use the word pick so for this lesson I've chosen six different phrasal verbs and as usual we're going to look at a lot of different definitions and many examples okay let's look at the first one it says their pick at and we have two different definitions for this one the first one says to slowly eat only a part of a meal okay think about a person that is sad right when somebody's sad usually they don't eat quickly they sort of eat a little bit mmm riot and they kind of they don't eat their whole meal because they don't feel like eating right they just pick up their meal okay or think about someone who's not hungry they might eat a few little bites but they don't eat the meal right so they're just picking at the meal or again somebody might be polite if two people are sharing some food and they might just eat little bits of it but they're not really eating a lot so again they're just picking at the food right so if somebody picks it their salad they're just eating a little bit of their salad they don't eat the whole thing okay and another definition says to touch or pull something okay you'll notice there I put that this is usually negative okay think about a child or a baby that keeps trying to touch the mothers glasses or trying to touch her hair so we can see we can say the baby keeps picking at the mothers glasses or picking at her hair so that's kind of a negative thing right we might see it as sort of annoying so if somebody's trying to repeatedly pick at something usually we think oh that's kind of a bad thing okay and I would often think of a child or a baby that's trying to pick it something when really they shouldn't be doing it right it's kind of a no thing okay next one says pick on and again there are two definitions the first one I put to tease or bully someone okay this is a really common phrasal verb okay think about the bully okay the bully is usually the guy at school he's usually the bigger guy and he likes to push around the smaller kids or say bad names to them right like call them to insult them or call them a loser or something like that okay so if this person is insulting somebody or pushing them we can say he is picking on the smaller child right so again he's bullying that child or teasing that child right maybe if there's a guy and actually he really likes a girl he might say bad things to her negative things right it's kind of strange but we could say he's always picking on her so he's always teasing her but maybe in this case really it's because he likes her right so he teases her he says funny things Oh your hair looks stupid right to he's kind of teasing her but actually he likes her in that situation so he's picking on her okay and the second definition is kind of similar it says to single out or always choose someone okay think about a teacher who always asks the same student for the answer while in class so that teacher is always picking on the same student okay and maybe it's because the teacher wants to embarrass that student right they want to make them look foolish or make them look stupid so they always pick on the same student right they always choose the same student to answer the question okay it could be positive right the teacher might be choosing the student because they think that's the smartest student and they think this student will know the answer so in that case if the teacher always picks on the same student it's for a good reason right but the other students might not like that right the other students might say the teacher always picks on you because the teacher you're special right you're the teacher's pet so something like that so I'd say generally this is a negative phrasal verb but it could be positive in some situations ok next one says pick off and once again we have two definitions the first one says to remove something by pulling at it okay imagine I got paint on my shirt okay and little pieces of paint okay and then the paint dries okay well now i have to pick off all the little pieces of dried paint right it's going to take me a long time to pick off all these little pieces so we might be able to use it like that okay another example imagine I go to the beach I get too much Sun and now I have a sunburn right my skin's all red from the Sun okay a few days later a sunburn always becomes dry skin so now I have all this dry skin okay I don't want the dry skin so I might pick off the little pieces of dry skin a kind of gross right a little bit disgusting but people might pick off all the pieces of skin right so something like that so it's to pull off the little pieces of something again like I said paint chips or could be dirt or dry skin or something okay and another definition there is to shoot something after singling it out ok this is to shoot something usually with a gun or some kind of weapon ok think about the military right the military has snipers and the snipers job is to pick off to pick off the enemy right so they've got to shoot the enemy they gotta find this one guy and shoot right so I'm picking that guy off ok or it might be a hunter think about a hunter who likes to hunt birds right like ducks so again the hunter might follow the duck and then pick it off right so the hunter is picking off ducks right so they're shooting at ducks one by one each duck at a time ok next one there says pick apart and I wrote here to criticize in a detailed way ok again this is a really common expression ok imagine this imagine i write a report and i give the report to my boss right or maybe to my teacher ok and then the boss or the teacher they give me many details about my mistakes oh this is wrong you need to change this this isn't correct so they're looking at every little small detail so my boss picked apart my report or my teacher picked apart my essay ok it kind of sounds negative right they're criticizing it may be too much right they picked it apart too much if I make a speech or a presentation and somebody picks apart my speech that means they're finding all the flaws or finding all the mistakes or problems in my speech ok but you might want somebody to pick apart your speech or your report or your essay right if I ask somebody could you correct this for me could you find all my mistakes in that case I want them to pick apart my report or pick apart my speech but if you don't want somebody to do it then we usually see this as a negative expression ok all right next one there says pick out and I wrote here to choose something from a group ok imagine I go to an ice cream shop ok in the ice cream shop has many different flavors of ice cream so I need to pick out one of the flavors ok I'm going to choose chocolate so I picked out chocolate I chose chocolate or I selected it from the group or from the selection of many kinds of flavors ok same thing if I go shopping imagine i want to buy a sweater ok and there are many sweaters that i can buy so i need to pick out the sweater that I like the most right so if you pick out something you're choosing it or you're selecting it from a group of things right so you choose the one that you want you pick out the one that you want okay and last year we got pick up okay you'll notice we've got seven different definitions for pickup so this is a very useful phrasal verb so let's look at the first one it says to learn something naturally from experience okay let's imagine I take a vacation okay and I go to Mexico okay and in Mexico they speak Spanish okay and I don't know any Spanish okay I don't know any words in Spanish but I go to Mexico for one week and I naturally learn a few words right I learned how to say hello or thank you or how are you so after my trip to Mexico I picked up a few words in Spanish right so I kind of naturally learned it from experience right because i went to a spanish-speaking country so i picked up a few words in spanish ok the same thing imagine my friend is learning to play the guitar okay and I'm not learning it but I kind of watched my friend learning the guitar and I think okay I understand that so I hold my fingers here and I do this so I picked up a few things about how to learn the guitar just from watching my friend right I wasn't really trying to do it I kind of just naturally learned it again from the experience of watching my friend do it ok another one says to improve or become busier ok think about a store ok imagine this store is usually it's not so busy ok but then at Christmastime right in December in North America most stores become really busy in December right near Christmas so we can say most stores really pick up at Christmas or business really picks up at Christmas so any time something gets busier we can say it really picks up right think about when um when work is finished right usually around six o'clock in most cities people finish work so we might say traffic really picks up at six o'clock right or the amount of people on the train or the bus really picks up during rush hour so we can use it that way too ok next one says to collect or get someone by car ok imagine my friend arrives at the airport ok and he doesn't have a car so he wants me to drive my car to the airport and then take him home so he wants me to pick him up from the airport will you come pick me up from the airport sure I'll come pick you up so we often use it like that ok also we can see here it means to pay a bill ok and usually for other people ok think about this I go to a restaurant maybe my wife and I we go to a restaurant with my parents ok and when the bill comes my dad pays for the bill he pays for everybody for everyone at the table for my wife and for my mom and for himself so I can say my dad picked up the bill right so he paid the bill for everybody so usually when somebody picks up the bill or they pick up the check this is usually in a restaurant or maybe a bar ok and it could even be something like a hotel right again same thing imagine I go to a hotel with my wife and my parents and my dad he pays for our hotel bill so again my dad picked up the bill right he paid for all of us ok another one there says to buy something ok let's imagine I need eggs right I have no eggs in my fridge so my wife calls me and she says will you pick up some eggs before you come home right so will you buy some eggs before you come home or think about this I have no toothpaste right I need some toothpaste to buy my to brush my teeth so I need to pick up some toothpaste right I need to buy some toothpaste ok couple more here the next one says to a rest someone okay think about the police the police are looking for some bad guys right there looking for some criminals maybe these bad guys they they robbed a bank okay so now the police finally they found those bad guys right so the police picked up the bad guys right or the police picked up the criminals so they found the criminals and they arrested them and now the criminals are in the back seat of the cop car and they're taking the criminals to jail right so they picked up the criminals are they picked up the bad guys right okay and last one there says to catch a disease or a virus all right think about this I go to my office and somebody's sick right they have a cold okay and then the next day or a couple days later now I have a cold so I picked up a cold from someone in my office right or think about children children easily get sick so my child is sick and he comes home maybe the child has the flu right influenza okay and then of course then a day later now I have the flute so I picked up the flu from my child right so that's usually how we use it you pick up a cold or you pick up a virus from another person right okay let's see if we can erase the whiteboard here and I want to take a look at some written examples using each of these phrasal verbs all right so let's look at the first one here it says stop picking at your food and just eat it right so i can imagine a parent saying this to their child right the child doesn't want to eat the food so the parent says stop picking at your food right okay next one the child kept picking at his mum's clothing so it kept touching it in sort of an annoying way right okay next one this mean guy at school is always picking on me I wish he'd stop right so again it's the bully he's calling me names he's pushing me around he's always picking on me okay next one there the teacher always picks on me in class so again the teacher always chooses me when asking maybe the difficult questions or just when asking questions okay next one there my jack is dirty I need to pick off all the fuzz right remember fuzz is those little bits of sort of dust or like you know just a cotton or material that gets on like a jacket or something like that okay next one there the shooter picked off at least five people right that one's kind of sad the shooter shot five people with a gun right okay my boss always picks apart my work I hate it right so again the boss is always finding all these little problems or flaws in a lot of detail in my work okay go ahead pick out anything you want sweetie okay so I imagine this is like a father saying it to his young daughter go ahead sweetie pick out any candy that you want pick out anything right or a toy pick out anything you want sweetie so choose or select anything you want okay next one there I picked up a few words during my trip to Japan ok so again because I was in Japan I naturally learned a few words again like hello or how much is this or thank you that kind of thing okay next one there the store usually picks up in the afternoons right so maybe the store is slow in the mornings but then it gets busier in the afternoons so it picks up in the afternoons ok next one do you want me to come pick you up from school right so do you want me to drive to school and come get you right ok next one there thanks for picking up the check I'll pay next time right so thanks for paying for the check for everyone or for me right to all pay for the check or for the bill next time right so that's probably at a restaurant that example ok next one there I need to pick up some groceries on the way home right so I need to buy some food on the way home ok couple more the police just picked up the burglar right so the burglar is a person who's stealing stuff from people's homes or from from shops or from somewhere right so they pick them up so they arrested him right they found him and now he's going to jail okay and last one there I think I picked up a cold from someone at school so I caught a cold right I got there sort of virus right so from somebody at school all right ok that is the end of today's lesson I hope you found all of these phrasal verbs and their examples useful thank you so much for joining me here at Maple Leaf ESL and I look forward to seeing you again next time

Channel: Maple Leaf ESL

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Keywords: ESL, English, Study, Learn, Teacher, Teachers, Student, Students, Education, Language, Lesson, Online, Free, Maple, Leaf, Lessons, School, phrasal verbs, grammar, frasal verbs, phrasal verbs pick, pick at, pick on, pick on someone, pick off, pick off someone, pick off something, pick apart, pick apart a story, pick apart a speech, pick apart a report, pick out, pick up, how to use phrasal verbs

Id: RRcdiU8LGUk

Length: 18min 37sec (1117 seconds)

Published: Tue May 15 2018