ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS | Build You English Vocabulary and GET FLUENT!

Do you want to sound more natural, like a native English speaker?

When you speak?

Well, one of the best things you can do is add phrasal verbs to your speech.

And that's what you'll do today.

Welcome back to JForrest English.

Of course.

I'm Jennifer.

Now let's get started.

First, in this lesson, I'm going to quiz you to see how well you know these common phrasal

verbs.

But don't worry, because after the quiz, I'm going to explain each phrasal verb in detail.

And then you can do the quiz again so you can see how much you improved from the beginning

of this lesson to the end of this lesson.

So let's start the quiz now.

Question one.

I really appreciate how much time you spend the annual report.

Now I'm only going to give you 3 seconds to answer, which isn't very much time, so feel

free to hit, pause, take as much time as you need, and when you're ready to see the answer,

hit play, grinding away at question two.

I know the fire alarm was scary, but you need to pull yourself together.

Question three.

My Co worker is so annoying he always Justin Bieber songs in the office belts out.

Question four.

I couldn't think of the word for bridge in my presentation, so I acted it out.

Question five.

We need to be honest with the team.

We shouldn't the auditor's recommendations talk down.

Question 6.

The fact that my husband forgot my birthday has been all week gnawing at me.

Question 7, the team Numerous penalties during the competition racked up question eight.

I think the comedian's humor I've been telling jokes since the show Rugged off on me.

Question nine.

No need to apologize, everyone from time to time slips up.

And finally, question 10.

I'll be in your city next week for a conference.

I hope you have time to to catch up.

So how'd you do with the quiz now?

Don't worry if it was difficult.

Don't worry if you got zero questions right, because now I'm going to explain each phrasal

verb in detail.

And I promise, after the next quiz you'll do a lot better.

So let's review each phrasal verb.

Now #1 to act out.

This is when you perform or explain something using actions and gestures.

For example, right now I'm acting out.

It's raining.

Using my actions and my gestures, I'm teaching you this one because when you don't speak

a language fluently, often we act out what we mean to help the other person understand.

For example, I couldn't think of the word for sunrise, so I acted it out.

How you're going to act out sunrise?

I'm not sure.

You can try though.

Another example.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Could you try acting it out?

This could be a smart way for you to understand what someone else is saying #2 to belt out.

I love this one because it means to sing loudly.

For example, the crowd belted out the national anthem before the game.

So the crowd sang the national anthem loudly.

They belted it out.

And here's another example that is true for me.

I love driving alone because I can belt out my favorite songs.

I can sing those songs very loudly #3 to catch up with someone.

This is a must know phrasal verb.

This is when you meet someone after a period of time to find out what they've been doing.

So let's say you and your friend haven't seen each other for one month.

Well, you don't know what your friend has been doing for that one month.

So you could text your friend and say we need to catch up.

Are you free tomorrow?

This is a very common way that two native speakers will arrange a social gathering.

You could also simply say let's catch up soon, and this means let's meet soon so I can find

out what you've been doing and you can find out what I've been doing since the last time

we saw each other #4 to grind away at something.

This is when you work on some something for a long time or with a lot of effort.

For example, I had to grind away at my taxes all weekend.

So this means I worked on my taxes, but because I said grind away at, you know, it took me

a long time and a lot of effort, You could also say I've been grinding away at this report

all week, but it's still not done.

So you've spent a lot of time on this report.

You've put in a lot of effort, but it's still not done.

You've been grinding away at it.

#5 to not at.

This means to trouble, worry, or annoy someone.

First of all, notice that silent G gnaw gnaw it starts with a an N sound not to not.

For example, his text message has been gnawing at me all day, so his text message has been

troubling me, worrying me, or annoying me.

You don't exactly know which one it is, but based on context and based on my emotion,

my facial emotion, you would know his text message has been gnawing at me all day.

Or let's say you were in a meeting and your coworker said something negative about you

in front of everyone and it's been bothering you.

Well your friend could say don't let his comment gnaw at you, don't let his comment bother

you or annoy you.

Number six to pull oneself together.

This means to become calm or to regain control of your emotions.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

So let's say your Co worker made that angry or rude or mean comment towards you in front

of everyone else and you became very emotional.

You became very upset or very agitated or very angry.

Even your friend could say pull yourself together to let you know you need to regain control

of your emotions because you're being too upset, too angry.

We also commonly use this in the imperative pull yourself together.

So notice with the imperative you start with the bass verb pull yourself together.

You need to pull yourself together.

Both of those are very common.

And then an hour later, your friend could say, hey, I was calling you, where were you?

And you could say, oh, I went for a walk alone, to pull myself together, to regain control

of my emotions and simply to become calm, #7 to rack up this means to acquire a lot

of something, and that something is generally negative.

For example, I racked up a lot of parking tickets while I was on vacation.

So maybe you're in a new city and you're not familiar with the parking rules and regulations,

so you racked up a lot of parking tickets.

Parking tickets are, of course, negative.

Or you could say when I was a student, I racked up a lot of student debt.

Again, student debt is of course a negative and you racked it up.

You acquired it.

#8 To rub off on this is when a quality or a characteristic is passed from one person

to another person, for example, her passion and enthusiasm rubbed off on me.

So this means my friend was being very passionate and enthusiastic and because of that I became

very passionate and enthusiastic, so her passion and enthusiasm rubbed off on me.

But we also use this with negative qualities and characteristics.

For example, don't let Frank's anxiety rub off on you.

So Frank is always anxious, and he's sharing his anxieties in public with his team.

If you're not careful, his anxieties could rub off on you, which means you will become

anxious simply because Frank is anxious and you're in the same room as Frank #9 to slip

up.

This means to make a careless error or mistake.

For example, I can't believe I slipped up and told her about her surprise party.

So there was a surprise party being planned for this person, and because it's a surprise,

you're not supposed to let the person know.

But I slipped up and I told her about the party.

I made a mistake and it was a careless mistake.

I should have known better.

Another example, you purchased 1000 units instead of 100 units.

That was a real slip up.

What do you notice here?

A slip up.

Here it's being used as the noun form to simply mean a mistake, a careless mistake, and finally

#10 to talk down.

This is when you try to make something sound less important, less important than it really

is in reality.

For example, the CEO tried to talk down the recent layoffs.

Layoffs is when you fire people from a company because there is no longer work for them.

So that sounds like the company could be in trouble.

But if you try to talk down the recent layoffs, it means you try to make them sound less severe,

less important than they really are.

Or remember when I accidentally ordered 1000 units instead of 100 units?

Well, I could say I tried to talk down my slip up.

Remember here slip up is being used as the noun form of the phrasal verb to slip up.

And it means a careless mistake.

I tried to talk down my slip up, my careless mistake.

So I tried to make my mistake the fact I ordered 10 times as many units as needed.

I tried to make that sound like not a big deal, not a big mistake.

I tried to talk down my slip up.

Now that you're more comfortable with these phrasal verbs, let's do that same quiz again

so you can see how much you've improved since the beginning of this lesson.

Here are the questions.

Hit pause.

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

Here are the answers.

Hit pause and take as much time as you need to review them.

So was that quiz a lot easier the second time?

I'm sure it was.

And think of how much you've improved, how much you've learned in such a short period

of time.

So share both of your scores, the first score and the second score in the comments to inspire

everyone how much you can improve in only 10 minutes.

And you can get this free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently

and confidently.

You can click here to download it or look for the link in the description.

And you can keep improving your English with this lesson right now.