Phrasal Verbs with TAKE: "take to", "take in", "take after"...

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.

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