5 Important Phrasal Verbs for English Learners

Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on English phrasal

verbs. Today, we are going to look at five different phrasal verbs. Now, these are very,

very common in everyday English speaking. The first phrasal verb we are going to look

at is "look forward to." Okay. So, if you say, "I am looking forward to something,"

it means that you are excited about something in the future. You are anticipating something

in the future. So, for example, if you work at a job, you get scheduled vacation and your

vacation is coming up in two weeks. Your vacation is in two weeks. You can say, "I'm looking

forward to my vacation." Okay? So, if you are looking forward to something, you are

excited about something in the future. Okay. In the future. Now, one important thing to

note here, you can follow the expression "look forward to." Again, you can use it in any

tense, any English tense. One important thing to note is that you can follow it with, again,

an event. So, you can say, "I'm looking forward to my mom's birthday party." "I'm looking

forward to my son's graduation." Okay? You can also follow it with a verb. Now, if you

follow "look forward to" with a verb, the verb must be the -ing form. So, you must use

a gerund, actually. So, you can say, "I'm looking forward to seeing my uncle this weekend."

If your uncle is a very cool guy and you're excited about looking... Sorry, guys. If you're

excited about seeing him this weekend, you can say, "I'm looking forward to seeing my

uncle this weekend." Okay.

The next phrasal verb, next English expression that we have is "get along with." So, if I

say, "I don't get along with my brother," what do you think the meaning is? Okay. If

I say, "I do get along with my brother," "I get along with my brother," this means I have

a good relationship with him. Okay? If I say, "I don't get along with my brother," I don't

have a good relationship with him. So, if you get along with someone, you have a good

relationship. And, again, you can use this expression in any tense. So, for example,

you can say, "When I was younger, I didn't get along with my dad. But now that I'm older,

we understand each other more and now we get along with each other." Okay? So, if you get

along with someone, you have a good relationship. If you don't get along with someone, you don't

have a good relationship with that person. Okay?

Next phrasal verb is "put up with," to put up with something. So, the example I gave

here, "She puts up with the subway every morning." Now, imagine you have to work or you go to

school every day. Okay? Every day, you must take the subway. Think of the subway or the

metro as some of you might know it. How is the subway in the morning in your city? How

is the metro in your city? Some people say the subway is very crowded. There are too

many people. Sometimes, the subway is very hot. Sometimes, the subway does not smell

nice. Okay? But you have to take the subway. Right? If you don't take the subway, you don't

go to work. But you have to take the subway, and even though you don't like it, you have

to put up with it. Okay? So, "to put up with something" means "to tolerate something."

To put up, to tolerate. Now, again, you can put up with situations. You can put up with

people in your life. So, for example, if you work at a job where you don't like your boss,

but he is your boss or she is your boss, you have to like them, pretend to like them, and

you can say, "I put up with my boss. I don't like him or her, but I put up with him. I

tolerate him or her." Okay? So, if you tolerate someone, again, it's something that you might

not like, but you have to do, so you put up with it.

Next, we have "to give up something." Now, if you give something up or give up something,

this means that you stop doing it. You quit doing it. So, for example, "He wants to give

up smoking." Now, as you notice, the verb here, the gerund, should I say, is an -ing

form. So, you can give up an activity. For example, some people can say, "I need to give

up drinking so much on the weekend." Or, "I need to give up texting my friends every day."

"I should give up checking my email every single hour." Okay? So, if you give up something,

you stop doing it. Stop doing or quit something. Now, again, you can give up an object, too,

an activity. So, you can say, "I gave up guitar." If you started playing guitar, you realized

it wasn't for you, you didn't like it, you gave up guitar. So, you can also give up,

again, something. It can be either an -ing gerund or it can be something like, "I gave

up the guitar," if you don't play guitar anymore.

Finally, we have the expression "put off." Now, if you put off something, this means

you postpone it. You push it back in time. So, here we have the example, "Don't put off

cleaning your room." One thing to note, again, -ing. Okay? "Don't put off cleaning your room."

Not, "Don't put off to clean." "Don't put off clean." "Don't put off cleaning your room."

So, "to put off" means to postpone or push back in time. So, imagine you have a doctor's

appointment, but something important happens. There is a family emergency, so you might

have to put off your doctor's appointment, push it back until another day. So, please,

don't put off studying, okay? You should study as often as you can if you want to improve,

well, your skills in anything, not just English, in anything.

So, today, we looked at five common English phrasal verbs. "Look forward to something."

You're excited about something in the future. "Get along with." You can get along with someone.

You have a good relationship with them. "You put up with something." So, if you put up

with something, you tolerate it. You have to do it. You don't like it, but you have

to do it. Okay? "You can give up something." "Stop doing something." "Quit something."

And you can put off something, which is push something back for another time, into the

future. Okay? So, guys, if you want to test your knowledge of these English phrasal verbs,

you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. Good luck. Take care.