Learn 10 Separable Phrasal Verbs - October 16, 2024

0:00Welcome back to Everyday Grammar from VOA Learning English. Today we return to a very common verb form in English, phrasal verbs. You will find one phrasial verb in every 192 words of written English. They will make your English sound more natural once you begin using them correctly. In an earlier program, we explained how and why English speakers use them. Today, we look at some often used phrasal verbs. This type of phrasial verb allows a direct object to come between the verb and the preposition or adverb. As you will hear, there is a special rule that learners should know about when using these 10 phrasals verbs. As you know, a phrasal verb is a phrase with two or more words, a verb and a preposition

1:06or adverb or both. We call the preposition or ad verb a particle when it combines with a verb. Here are two examples. Please put the lamp on the desk. I think you're putting me on. In the first sentence, on is a prepositional showing the position of the lamp. In the second sentence, on is an adverbial particle. Put on is a phrasal verb meaning fool or trick in this sentence. An important point is that a regular verb plus preposition combination has two meanings. A phrasial verb, that is a verb plus particle, has a single meaning within a sentence. Many phrasals verbs have a number of different meanings in different situations, yet the meaning of the verb plus particle can usually be expressed with a single Latin-based

2:11verb. Here are two sentences with the same meaning. They tore down the old building. They demolished the old building. The verb tear has its own meaning, and so does the preposition down. They can combine with other words when they are alone. But as a phrasal verb, tear down, they have one meaning, destroy. In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited West Germany. He told a crowd in the divided city of Berlin, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Now for the tricky part. You know that some verbs are transitive, which means they have a direct object. When such verbs appear as phrasal verbs, an object can either separate the phrase or follow it. Here's an example. I decided to throw out my old jeans.

3:24Both of these sentences are correct. The object of the phrasal verb THROW OUT is genes. You can use a pronoun instead of genes and ask, Are you sure you want to throw them out? However, you cannot ask, Are you SURE you want throw out them? Here, the pronoun THEM must appear between the verb and the particle. In recent years, language experts began to use computers to examine a large collection of written and spoken language. When researchers look for phrasal verbs, they find that many deal with an activity. They also find a few verbs combine with many particles. Among the most common verbs are come, put, get, go, pick, sit, and take. These combine with the adverb particles up, out, in, on, off, and down to make up a group of very useful phrasal verbs.

4:39Now let's look at transitive phrasals verbs. See the list at the end of the article. The verb get is part of many phrasial verbs. For example, we use get up to mean to wake oneself up or to awaken someone. For example, My son loves to sleep late. I got him up on time to catch the bus this morning. Remember, the pronoun has to come between the verb and the adverb. So we cannot say, I got up him. Notice how the Norwegian group A-ha uses a separable phrasal verb two ways in their song, Take On Me. Which one is correct in formal grammar? I'll be coming for your love, okay? Take on me, take on me. Take me on, take on me! I'll begone in a day or two. For Learning English Everyday Grammar, I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm John Russell.