Hi. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's
lesson is, again, phrasal verbs; everybody's favourite lessons. Today, we're going to look
at phrasal verbs using the verb "take". Again, a quick review: what is a phrasal verb? A
phrasal verb is a verb and a preposition, when put together, giving different meanings.
Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes more. So, today, we're going to look at "take out",
"take in", "take over", "take up",-excuse me-"take after", "take back", "take off",
"take on", "take down", "take to". Let's start with "take out". All of you, of
course, know takeout food. You go to McDonald's, they ask you if you want to eat in or take
out. So, take out means to take your food to go. That's one meaning. Another meaning of
"take out" is the literal meaning; exactly what the words mean. For example, you have a
turkey in the oven. It is finished cooking. You take it out of the oven. Then, there is
also the slang. If you want to take someone out, you kill them. You see this in kind of
the mob movies. They want to take someone out; they want to assassinate.
Assassinate. I'll have to... Yeah, I'll
leave that for now. Okay. "Take in". What does "take in" mean? A few
meanings as well. The first is the most common one. If your clothes are too big, if you've
lost some weight, you might want to take in your shirt, or your dress, or your pants.
You take it to a tailor, and he or she will take it in; make it smaller, tighter. Another
meaning of "take in", for example, if you go outside your house and you see a cat, and
the cat is sitting there: "Meow, meow", you know, it's all sad and lonely. You take it
in. It doesn't mean you take it into your house. It, of course, means that. But more,
it means like adopt. You take it into your house, you give it a home, it's part of the
family. So, you accept, you take in, you adopt something or someone. "Take over". "Take over" means assume control
of something. So, for example, if I own a big company and you own a slightly smaller
company, but you're my competition, one way I can beat you is I can take over your company.
I can buy a lot of shares in your company, and I take over. I take control. If we're
going on a long road trip, and I'm driving and I'm getting tired, I say: "Oh, can you
take over the driving?" Means we switch, and you continue driving. "Take up". If you take up space, for example,
it means you use. You use space. You take up space in a room. Another way to say "take
up" is you start to do something new, like a new hobby, or you start learning something
new. So, recently, I took up Spanish. It means I started going to Spanish classes, and I
started to learn Spanish. Now, if you add "with", you can take something up with someone.
It means you can discuss. So, if you have a problem in your class and you're falling
behind, and you're not doing so well, take this problem up with your teacher. It means
go to your teacher and discuss the situation. See how you can fix it. Okay. "After". If you take after someone, means
you behave like them. It's very similar to look like, except it's not about physical
features; it's about personality. So, if you take after someone, you are similar to someone
in terms of character or behaviour. So, for example, I take after my mother. My sister
takes after my father. My father was a very hot-tempered man. My sister's a very
hot-tempered woman, so she takes after him. "Take back". Again, two meanings. There's
the literal meaning, so I lend you my pen. You use it. You finished. I take it back.
You give it back to me, it returns to me; I take it back. Now, if I said something really
mean to you or something not nice, or I made a promise and then I take it back, it means I
cancel what I said. So, if I said something that made you upset and I take it back, it
means I apologize. I take back the bad words and everything's okay, hopefully. If I made
a promise then take it back, it means I'm not going to do this promise anymore. Okay?
So you have to be a little bit careful about take backs. "Take off". I think most of you know the airplane
takes off. It goes down the runway, then "whew," takes off. But "take off" can also mean to be
very successful or very quickly to do well. So, a business starts and, you know, the owners
are doing what they can, but suddenly the business just takes off. It becomes very popular, very
successful, making lots of money, hopefully, again. "Take on". If you take something on, means
you're facing the challenge. Okay? So I don't know how to do something, but I will take it
on. I will try to do it. I will challenge it. Now, you can also take someone on, means
confront. So, this guy has been bullying me for a long time, and I'm fed up. I don't want
to do... I can't take it anymore. I will take him on. I will challenge him to a
fight, and I will stand and win. "Take down". But if I take him on, but he's
actually much bigger than me, he might take me down. It means "phoo", take me down to
the ground and I'm beaten. Okay? So that's one meaning of "take down" is to beat someone up,
basically, or to knock someone down. Another meaning is to write notes. So in your class, the
lecturer, the professor is speaking, speaking speaking. You don't have time to read the
book as he's speaking, so the best thing you can do is just take down notes. Take down the
most important information. Write. Write it in your book. "Take to", a few meanings as well. If you
take to someone, means you have a sort of connection with that person; you like that
person, you have a feeling that you want to help this person or you want to be around
this person. If you take something to someone or somewhere, then you are just carrying it.
So I'm going to take this pen to the other room. Okay? In the other room is one of my
favourite students. I really took to her or him, or whatever the case may be.
So "take to". And, a little bonus - I've got an idiom. So,
this time we're looking at "take under". But "take under" by itself doesn't really mean
anything. In the idiom: "to take someone under your wing", means basically to take someone
as an apprentice or as a protégé. This is an excellent word. "Protégé" is like a
student, but not really a student. You're teaching him how to do something specific.
You're not teaching him or her in a class. You're showing him or her, in the real world,
how to do something. So you take this person under your wing, means you protect them, you
teach them, and hopefully one day they fly; they take off on their own. Okay. I'm going to put an extra "s" here because
I'm pretty sure it's two "s'", but we'll check that after. Anyway, if you want to practice these phrasal
verbs, go to www.engvid.com. There's quiz there. You can try that out. Of course, if you
have any questions, ask away in the forum. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube
channel. And come back again soon. Bye.
