Phrasal Verbs - Expressions with 'PLAY'

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to make belief 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 some phrasal verbs that begin with the word play so for today's lesson i've selected eight different phrasal verbs let's see if we can get started okay the first one there says play along and I wrote here to cooperate or pretend to cooperate okay think about this situation I want to play a joke on one of my friends right I want to play a prank okay but I need my other friends to also join me in making this joke to one of my friends so I need them to cooperate with me for this joke so we can say I need my friends to play along with this joke right I need them to sort of cooperate or in a sense pretend to cooperate with this joke okay think about one more example it doesn't have to be with a joke or something funny okay it often is but think about another example imagine it's a serious situation and I need some information from somebody ok so I might tell somebody a lie so that they will give me an answer ok and I also need my other friend to kind of join me with this lie right I need my friend to sort of cooperate in telling this lie in order to get some information so again I need my friend to play along right I need my friend to play along with this lie right I neither to cooperate with this lie ok next one there says play around and we have two definitions for this one the first one says to behave in a playful way ok this one's pretty simple this is basically used in the same way that we use play ok if I'm playing with my friends or I'm playing around my friends that just means I'm having a good time right I'm being playful with my friends okay remember though when we use playing with friends or playing around with friends it's usually something that a child says write an adult doesn't say I'm going to play with my friends write an adult says I'm going to hang out with my friends but a child says I'm going to play with my friends okay also if I'm sort of joking with somebody in a playful way I might just say I'm playing around with you right and in that case it means I'm just joking with you in a very playful way I'm not being serious I'm playing around okay a second definition says to be sexually unfaithful okay think about a married man if a married man is cheating on his wife and having sex with other women we can say that this man is playing around right or we can say he's playing around with other women okay usually it it only means sex so if a married man is having a relationship with a woman right where they spend time together right and she's kind of like a mistress or a girlfriend we might not say play around right it's usually used for when a man or a woman is having a sexual relationship with somebody especially when they are married or in a relationship ok next one says play around with and i put here to consider different ideas about something before making a decision ok imagine think about an artist ok or somebody creative ok if i want to write a story ok maybe there's one part where i'm not really sure what i should write for this next part so i might try a few different ideas before I make a decision ok in that case I'm playing around with some different ideas before making a final decision ok same imagine in a company there's a group of people and they're working on a project okay and they don't quite have the idea yet they haven't really decided on one final idea okay in that case they are still playing around with many different ideas before making a final decision so again we can play around with ideas or play around with different concepts we typically use it like that okay next one says play at and I put a definition here for to do something without being serious okay imagine this imagine I get a new job okay and it's not a job that I'm really interested in okay and all of my friends and my family they know that this is not a job that I'm interested in it's not a job that I'm serious about so my friends might say to me what are you playing at taking this new job right so in this case why are you doing this job you're not really serious about it so what are you playing at okay one more example imagine a student decides or like a young person from high school decides to go to college okay and this person isn't really serious about college they don't really want to study in college they're not interested in studying these subjects so in this case we might say this person is playing at being a student right in a sense they're kind of pretending to be a student they're not really being serious they're kind of just going to classes but not really being serious about it so they're playing at being a student okay next one there says playback and i put here to replay for example a recording okay or something electronic okay this one is usually used right after you record something so imagine I have my smartphone and I record a video okay now I want to check is the video good quality right look good is the sound good quality so i might play back the video to check its quality right same thing if I record my voice into my computer and I want to check the quality i might play back the video or play it back so often it means to replay it after you record it okay imagine i watch a Hollywood film like a two-hour film okay if I'm going to watch the film again I usually wouldn't say I'm gonna play back the film okay we would not use it in this situation we usually use playback because we're going to check the quality of something that we just recorded or that somebody just recently recorded so we use it like that ok next one there says to play down and I wrote here to minimize something's important ok alright this is a good expression if I play something down I'm trying to make it seem like it's not as important as it really is so imagine I get a new job title ok I get a promotion at work and now my new job is really important ok but I'm a humble person I'm pretty modest so when I tell my friends or when I tell my family that I got this new job i might play it down a little right again because i'm humble so I don't want it to seem like my job's really important but actually it is a really important job right it's a big deal so if i play it down i'm making it seem like it's not a big deal ok so I'm playing it down ok next one there says to play on and I wrote here to exploit someone's feelings or weaknesses ok if i play on someone's kindness that means I'm exploiting their kindness right that means I'm taking advantage their kindness right if I have a friend who always buys me coffee or he always buys me something when I need something right then in that case maybe every time I expect this person to buy me something so in this case I'm playing on their generosity or I'm playing on that person's kindness right I'm really just taking advantage of it so it's not really a good thing okay or if there's somebody who always agrees to things and they always say yes and I know this I know this is a good-natured agreeable person so if i take advantage of it then i'm playing on their good nature or i'm playing on their agreeable personality so i'm taking advantage of it okay and last one here is to play up and I wrote here to emphasize or make more important ok notice that play up is basically the opposite of play down remember play down we try to make something seem less important okay now find plane up I'm trying to make it seem more important that it really is i'm trying to emphasize perhaps my involvement or my role okay again think about i'm doing a project at work okay and my role my part in this project was very small okay with the boss when we're finished the boss loves it and the boss says oh great job right the bosses Andrew you did a fantastic job on this ok so in this case I know I had a small role but I might try and make it seem like I had a bigger bowl I might say oh yes I worked really hard and I worked long hours on this project I spent so much time on this project ok so I'm playing up my involvement in this project or I'm playing up my role in this project right I know that my role was small but because the bosses have I want the boss to think that my role in the project was big so I'm playing up my involvement in this project okay and it can be used for anything again if it's something creative and people like it and actually my role in this creative project was small i might play up my involvement in this project because again i liked all the attention i want people to think that i had a big part in it so I'm playing up my role in this project okay let's see if we can erase the whiteboard and I want to look at some written examples using each of these phrasal verbs okay so the first example there says when I played a joke on Tom all my friends played along so that Tom would believe it was true right so they all cooperated right in pretending that something was true so that we could make this joke okay next one there the guy is never serious he's always playing around right so he's always behaving in a playful way and sort of joking around right okay next one the politician was caught several times playing around with various women right so again this politician is probably a married man so if he was playing around with various women right he was having sexual relations with them okay next one did you make a decision about the project yet not yet i'm still playing around with a few ideas right so i'm still considering a few things before i make a final decision okay next one he's not serious about becoming a doctor he's just playing at becoming one right so again he's sort of just pretending that he wants to be a doctor but he's not really being serious he's kind of only making a half-hearted effort okay next one we should play back the video we made to see how it looks so again let's go back to the beginning of the video to check the quality see how it looks ok next one stop playing down all your success you're always so modest right so trot stop trying to make it seem like your success is less important than it really is ok couple more she's been playing on his kindness for years I wish she'd stop right so she's been taking advantage of his kindness for a long time okay and last one I played up my experience so that they hire me ok so think about that one I go to a job interview right actually I don't have a lot of experience for this kind of job but I play it up like I do have a lot of experience right so I kind of make it seem like I have more I sort of emphasize my experience but actually I don't have much experience so I played it up ok that is the end of today's lesson I hope you found these examples useful thank you so much for joining me here at Maple Leaf ESL and I look forward to seeing you again next time you [Music]

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, grammar, phrasal verbs, frasal verbs, english grammar, phrasal verbs with play, play along, play around, play around with, play at, what are you playing at, play back, play down, play on, play up, play up a situation, play down a situation, play along with me, stop playing around, play on her kindness, play on his kindness

Id: ddujJ6xwMPs

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019