How to learn phrasal verbs in English easily

- Do you wish that you had a way to more easily learn

and remember phrasal verbs in English?

In today's lesson,

I'll explain and show you a fun tip on how to do that.

Hi, I'm your English coach, Christina,

and welcome to Speak English with Christina.

The best place to become more confident

speaking business English step by step.

One thing that students always struggle with in English

is how to learn and remember phrasal verbs.

Well, today I wanna share with you a fun technique

that's going to use your imagination and your creativity

but more importantly, it's going to help you

always remember new phrasal verbs.

All right, today, I have a tip for you.

TIP, T-I-P, it stands for Turn Into a Picture.

We're going to take a few phrasal verbs,

and we're going to turn them into,

transform them into pictures in your mind

so that you can visualize them,

you can more easily remember them.

So, let's take the first phrasal verb, get back to you.

It's a very common phrasal verb in business English.

I was on the phone just the other day and I used it

and I said, oh, that would be a good one for this video.

So, get back to you.

Now, get back to you,

it means to recontact someone, to contact someone again.

For example, let me find the answer

and I'll get back to you with some information.

I'll recontact you with some information.

So we're going to create,

we're gonna turn that phrasal verb into a picture.

So let's imagine, get.

The word get, it means like to grab

or to obtain or to reach something.

So let's say, get, and then back.

So like, you're back here, to get back to someone.

So it means you're going to recontact someone

so we can turn that into a visual image

of like, you running behind someone, running after them

and you're trying to grab,

you're trying to get their back

so that you can tell them something.

So there's one little mental image

that you can have for get back to someone.

Now, you might be thinking, Christina, I,

that's a silly little story.

I would never run after someone and grab them by their back.

But you know what?

It is a little, it is a silly story,

but who are the people who learn languages best?

Children.

Children, so many of my students,

they say, oh, I'm too old to learn English very well.

Or I should have started when I was a child

they learn so much more easily,

but why do they learn more easily?

Because they use their imagination,

because they're creative,

because they're not afraid make these silly stories

and to say silly things,

because they're using that part of their brain

and that's going to help you to have fun with it

but also more importantly, to remember it.

So don't be afraid to make silly stories.

The sillier, the more unusual, the more memorable it is.

Okay, our second phrasal verb, an example, to break down.

So, to break down, it means to take like a big process

or a very complex explanation,

for example, in a presentation

and to really divide it into the little individual steps

so that your listener

can better understand what you're talking about

really step-by-step.

And I, and that's what I try to do with my lessons

is to really break things down

so that you can understand English better.

So, if we break down something, this is quite easy.

We can visually imagine we've got an object,

which we break, like we break into little pieces

and then we put those pieces down on the floor

or the table,

but when we break it and we put it down

and we're standing over it, looking at it,

we can really see a global overview and we can understand

or we can see the little individual parts.

So, if you want something visual to break down something,

imagine yourself literally breaking it,

putting it down on the floor

so that you can see all those parts

and maybe get a better global vision of it.

And again, like I said, the idea is not to make a story

or an image that is super interesting or intellectual,

or, it's really just to give you something,

that's gonna allow your brain

to remember what that phrasal verb means.

All right.

And a third, very common business English phrasal verb

is to reach out.

You might see this in an email,

thanks for reaching out to me.

Or you may say it, I'm reaching out to you

to propose a collaboration or something like that.

Anyway, when, we often use it in emails

to reach out to someone,

it basically means, like I'm contacting you

for the first time.

So, let's imagine, what's the kind of image

or story that we can create with that?

We often use it in email,

it's often for sort of a first contact.

We can almost imagine like someone is reaching their hands,

like through the screen,

they're coming out, they're reaching out of the screen,

trying to get your attention

or to get you to respond to them.

So we can imagine that, like, you're writing your email,

I'm reaching out to you

so I'm reaching through your screen,

I'm reaching out to you

to try to establish that first connection.

So that's three examples of phrasal verbs,

and three ways

that you can turn those phrasal verbs into pictures.

Remember that TIP, turn it into a picture.

But if you want other things

that you can do with these phrasal verbs

once you see it, you turn it into a picture,

but now you know that you need to do something with it

to really practice and sort of assimilate it

into your English vocabulary,

here are five things that you can do with it.

The first thing is very simple.

Just read it, note it down somewhere

that you can see it often

like on a post-it on your computer

is a very easy way to do that.

Be sure to look at the definition of it.

You can go onto a good online dictionary or Linguee.

There's lots of different sites.

You can just type, for example, reach out to definition

and you'll find the definition.

Then you wanna do something

now that you know the phrasal verbs.

So, set a goal for yourself.

Maybe you want to learn three phrasal verbs a week

or maybe it's just one per day.

If you learned one phrase over per day,

you could learn 30 phrasal verbs in a month,

365 phrasal verbs in a year.

Imagine what your English would be like

if you mastered 365 more phrasal verbs.

You can do it,

but then try to use it.

Use it in conversations, use it in your emails.

You have more time to think when you're writing emails.

So, maybe try to use it in emails or like chat

if you use chat at your work.

And then teach it to a coworker or a friend

or a colleague or something.

I'm sure you have coworkers

who are also improving their English,

tell them, hey, I learned this new phrasal verb,

to get back to someone.

And I imagined running after someone

because I want to get their back,

I want to recontact them, reconnect with them.

Teach it to someone because when you're teaching it,

you're also going more in depth.

You're deepening your own learning.

All right.

So, that's your technique

for turning phrasal verbs into pictures,

but also remembering them better.

And if you would like to learn more phrasal verbs with me,

then sign up, subscribe to my YouTube channel

so you get lots more business English videos.

And also go ahead and watch this next lesson,

which has a lot more phrasal verbs for you.

And you can start trying this turn into picture technique.

All right, I will see you over in the next lesson.