Do You Know These 10 Phrasal Verbs? [English Vocabulary Lesson with Examples and QUIZ]

In this video, you're going to  add the top 10 phrasal verbs to  

your vocabulary. Of course I'm Jennifer,  Welcome back to JForrestEnglish training,  

your place to become a fluent confident  English speaker. Now let's get started.  

Are you ready to add the top 10 phrasal verbs  to your vocabulary? Make sure you watch right  

until the end because I'm going to quiz you to  see how well you know how to use these phrasal  

verbs. Phrasal verb number one, to add up. We  use this phrasal verb to say that something  

seems reasonable or likely. And the something is  usually a story, an explanation, or a reason. So  

let's say your co worker took a week off of work  because she had to care for her sick mother.  

But then she comes back to the office a week  later, and she's really tanned. And it's winter.  

You might say, something doesn't add up. Her  story doesn't seem reasonable or likely. Something  

doesn't add up. If she was taking care of her  sick mother. why does she have a tan? I bet she  

took the week off to go to the beach, to go on  vacation. To beat down. This is a very simple  

but useful phrasal verb. We use this phrasal verb  only with the sun, when the sun is shining very  

strongly. So if you're sitting on a patio, and  it's sunny outside and it's really really hot,  

you can say Wow, it's really beating down. "It"  being the sun. If you say it, you don't have to  

define the subject, the noun, as the sun, because  we always use this phrasal verb with the sun, so  

it's not necessary. And the context of sitting on  a patio on a sunny day is all you need. So, it's  

really beating down. Now you can use an object  and say us it's really beating down on us. Notice  

I have to add an extra preposition ON. Beat down  on someone or something. You can use a something.  

You might say, you should move your laptop. This  sun is really beating down on it, on your laptop.  

And that's not very good for your electronics.  Right? So you should put your laptop in the  

shade. Number three to tidy up. This is when you  organize or arrange things in the right place. So  

you can take a bedroom, an office, a kitchen, any  individual room, or you could take an entire house  

Eden and you might say this weekend I need to tidy  up or this weekend I need to tidy my office up.  

So you're going to go in your office and you're  going to put all this things the objects in the  

right place. So this is a very useful phrasal for  number four to talk down to. When you talk down to  

someone. You talk to them in a way that makes them  feel less intelligent than you or less important  

than you. So this is a negative phrasal verb. This  often happens with adults and children, adults and  

teenagers, parents and teenagers. A teenager  might complain or a young adult might complain  

that their parents always talk down to them. They  talk to them in a way that makes them feel less  

intelligent or less important. This often happens  in the workplace, especially with someone in a  

higher position and someone in a lower position  that someone in a higher position might talk down  

to that person even though that person has a lot  more experience than them. And there's no reason  

to do that. So this is used in a negative way but  it commonly happens so you'll hear this phrasal  

verb a lot when people are complaining about  other people. Number five to sum up. This means  

to summarize the main points. We commonly use this  phrasal verb when you're ending a presentation  

or a speech in your conclusion when you want to  summarize so at the end of your presentation, you  

might say to sum up, if we want to increase our  profits, we need to diversify our product line.  

So that's the main point of your presentation  you elaborated on that main point, and now  

you're saying to sum up to summarize so this is  an excellent phrasal verb to add to your business  

vocabulary to sound very advanced, professional  and natural number six to joke around.  

When you joke around it means what you're saying  shouldn't be taken seriously. You're just joking.  

You're just being light hearted. You're just  having fun. Oh, we commonly use this to reassure  

someone. So you might say oh, don't get mad. I  was just joking around. So maybe you were making  

comments about someone in a light hearted way but  they took it seriously and you reassure them Don't  

get mad I was just joking around. Now sometimes  you might tell someone you shouldn't joke around  

about job loss. So maybe somebody is making  comments about other people losing their jobs,  

and they're not taking it very seriously. But you  want that person to know that's inappropriate.  

That's a serious topic. You shouldn't joke around  about job loss. It affected many people. Number  

seven to eat out. This simply means to eat in a  restaurant. So rather than saying last night I  

went to a restaurant for dinner, we just simply  say last night I ate out last night I ate out  

which means I ate in a restaurant. This morning.  I ate out before work so because it's morning,  

obviously we're talking about breakfast so you  can use it for any meal of the day. So you might  

suggest to your friend if you want to save money,  you should stop eating out. You should stop eating  

out all the time. So you should stop eating in  restaurants because of course it's more expensive.  

So this is an excellent phrasal verb to add to  your daily vocabulary to sound like a native  

English speaker and number eight to drama. Now  when you drum something up, it means you increase  

support or interest in someone or something. So  let's say your company introduced a new product,  

but sales are lower than expected. Your boss  might suggest everybody needs to brainstorm  

ways to drum up interest so to increase  interest to drum up sales to increase sales.  

So if you put drama before the noun, it just means  increase. Let's drum up support increase support,  

drum up enthusiasm, increase enthusiasm. Number  nine to speak up. When you speak up. It means  

you speak more loudly. So right now I'm talking  at this volume. But maybe you could say Jennifer  

I'm having a hard time hearing you. Can you speak  up? Can you increase the volume of your voice? And  

I'll say sure I can speak up and then I'll speak  more loudly. So this is an excellent phrasal  

verb for a language learner because often you  don't understand someone the first time and part  

of the problem might be that they're speaking  too quietly. So you can say Can you speak up?  

Can you please speak up? Or do you mind speaking  out and then the other person will speak more  

loudly. Number 10. To work out a problem or  a situation. This means that the problem or  

situation becomes better it improves. So let's  say you're having a conflict with your boss.  

Your coworker might say don't worry, I'm sure  you'll work it out. Work it out. That it being  

the situation the problem the conflict. I'm sure  you'll work it out. I'm sure it will improve. I'm  

sure it will become better. We also use this with  problems in general not specific to conflicts. So  

let's say you lost some lot of money in the stock  market. That's a problem. But your friend can say  

don't worry, I'm sure it will work out. So it  being this situation that you lost a lot of  

money. I'm sure it will all work out in the end.  So that is a very common expression that native  

speakers use to reassure someone that a situation  or problem or conflict will improve. I'm sure it  

will all work out in the end. Now you have 10 new  phrasal verbs added to your vocabulary to sound  

fluent events and natural English awesome job. Are  you ready for your quiz? Here are your questions,  

hit pause and take as much time as you need and  when you're ready, hit play to see the answers.  

So how did you do with that quiz? Let's  find out. Here are the answers. Hit  

pause compare the answers to your own  and whenever you're ready, hit play.  

All right, so what was your score out of  10? Make sure you share your score in the  

comments below and if you got any wrong, don't  worry that just means you're learning and just  

keep practicing. Do some example sentences  in the comments below. Share your score and  

do some example sentences with your favorite  phrasal verbs from this lesson to help you  

remember them. And if you found this video  helpful, please hit the like button, share  

it with your friends and of course subscribe.  And before you go make sure you head on over  

to my website JForrestEnglish.com and download  this free speaking guide. In this guide I share  

six tips on how to speak English fluently and  confidently and until next time Happy studying.