Phrasal Verbs in English - 'Up'

Oh hi, James from www.engvid.com, how are you doing?

I'll have to finish this up later.

I wanted to bring that up and something else for you to know.

If you were listening carefully you would have noticed I used the word "up".

So I said "bring up" and "finish up".

The key here is I used a verb plus a preposition.

This formula, we call this phrasal verbs.

Your verb "bring", your verb "finish" plus a preposition, it's called a phrasal verb.

First thing I'm going to do is introduce to you what a phrasal verb is and then we're

going to look at a couple, okay?

Ready?

Let's go.

Now a phrasal verb by definition, and here it is, is a two to three word verb, okay?

So it's a two or three word verb.

So what happens is we can actually modify the use of a verb.

To say "finish" just means complete, but when we finish up it means we're not quite complete.

We actually have to move up to a point where we can complete it.

So the unison or joining these two words together gives us a greater meaning, okay?

It expands the meaning of just the simple verb, hence phrasal verb.

Now in this case I want to work on "up".

What that means is we're going to look at how verbs get changed when we add "up" to

the verb.

Ready?

Let's go.

So there's "up" and we now know phrasal verb is a two or three word verb.

So what does "up" mean?

Well I'm glad you asked.

Let's fill up the board with it, okay?

So "up", we add "up" plus a verb, "up" has a couple of meanings.

So let's touch on a few today.

Number one is to increase, okay?

When you say "up" you want to increase something.

What's another one?

Well, move, sit up, up, move, movement, okay?

And another one is complete, when you complete something.

So when you add "up" plus a verb, you're going to get the ideas of increasing it, movement,

move, or we should say "movement", okay?

And completing something, alright?

Now that we've got that, why don't we look at phrasal verbs that actually match this.

Now what's the first one we're going to do?

Well, verb plus "up".

I said "to complete".

Well, let's say you're driving a car, you look over, the gas is low.

Well, you've got to fill up, right?

So we've got to pull up, go to the gas station, put gas in the car, and fill up the tank.

That means put gas or oil in the car and fill it up, complete it, so it's full.

So we say "fill up".

Another thing you can say with "fill up", sorry about that, is if you eat too much stuffed

food you will fill up your belly, make it completely full.

What about another one?

We could also say "to finish up".

Do you remember I was looking at the magazine and I said later on I will finish up, I will

complete reading it later, complete.

So complete you can use for fill up or finish up.

You could finish up your homework, complete it later, okay?

Or fill up your brain with English.

Move on.

All right, so that was complete.

What's another one we said?

I believe we said "move", move.

So when we use "move" with "up" we can catch up.

Catch up, well not quite, it's not catching anything.

But let's just say you need to, well here's an example.

Your friend is walking and you are behind them.

Your friend will say "you've got to catch up", that means increase your speed so you're

walking together.

Or in this case, "move", move faster.

What's another one?

I gave it to you earlier on.

You're sitting down, someone says "sit up", well you've got to sit up straight.

You're leaning forward, sit up, sit straight, move your body.

So here's two examples of "up" showing movement.

Now this one's interesting because I also mentioned it means "increase" as well to catch

up.

But that's another thing.

But, one more, okay?

The last one we talked about was "increase", right, "increase", "up".

This is one you're going to love because all my students ask me about it.

Sometimes people are talking, they're talking very, very softly, could you hear that?

You need to speak up, increase the volume of your words.

And actually that's a good thing.

When you speak up you work on your pronunciation, but that's another class for later, okay?

So you want to speak up, increase the volume.

Now what happens if you're not actually talking to someone but you're watching television?

Sometimes when you're watching TV what happens is you can't hear the television, your friend

has the remote control, they can turn it up, so you say "hey, could you turn up the volume?"

Turn up means to increase, increase.

Now we've done three different categories, increase, move, what was the third one?

Check the blue screen and go through the three.

Cool, check the blue screen, okay, now you know the third one now.

Alright, so enough review.

So just before we wrap up, that's another one, wrap up to complete, see the one we just

did?

Anyway, there's a couple ones I'll give you that may be useful to you.

If you see a friend that is sad, crying, upset, you can tell them to cheer up, cheer up.

Cheer up means feel better, increase their happiness, okay?

What happens if you go to a party and you want to get some balloons, happy birthday,

you want to blow them up, blow, blow up some balloons.

Actually I love blow up because there's a few meanings, one I can't tell you here, and

another one is when you blow up a building, action movies, blow up.

If you eat too much food, like my mom's food, you'll blow up because you'll get fat, okay?

And one other one is, I like to say this to people who act very silly or childish, you

can tell them, why don't you grow up?

That means to become mature, act like an adult, okay?

Now look, I hope you've enjoyed this particular lesson on up, okay, and its uses with phrasal

verbs.

Remember, what is a phrasal verb?

Now before you launch that, blue screen will come down, you fill it in.

Tell me, what is a phrasal verb, and for review, give me the three uses of up.

Yeah, you got that, cool.

Anyway, we've got, well this is just one phrasal verb, but many of which I'm happy to teach

you.

Come to the website.

What website would that be?

Well, let's take a look.

We've filled out most of our time, so let's fill out the board, out, that's the next phrasal

verb we'll do.

But, www.engvid.com.

Where you'll find myself and other teachers who are going to be happy to help you.

So, check out the forum, ask your questions, have a good day.