WTF are Phrasal Verbs?

Aww yeah! What's going on, RealLife English?

I'm Chad, welcome to another episode of RealLife TV and today I'm going to answer a question

that so many people have asked me, and that is "What the F* are Phrasal Verbs?"

Is this RealLife?

Ok guys, so, phrasal verbs are quite a difficult subject in English but let me just quickly explain

to you what they are. So, we have two types of phrasal verbs. We have a literal phrasal

verb, and a figurative phrasal verb. Today I'm just going to focus on the figurative,

but let me just give you a quick explanation of what they are.

A phrasal verb will always be a verb and a preposition, ok? When these two words are

together, it often takes on a different meaning. So, let me give you a good example that will

also show you the difference between a literal and a figurative phrasal verb.

Let's start with the phrasal verb "to run out." "To run out." Literally, "to run out"

could mean to leave a building, or to leave somewhere running. For example, "I ran out

of the building because it was on fire." But I can also use the same phrasal verb in the

figurative sense. For example, "today, I woke up and realised I had run out of coffee."

"To run out of something." This means that it has finished. I have consumed all of this.

So, this is a good example of the same phrasal verb being used in a literal sense and a figurative

sense.

Ok, so now that you know the difference between a literal and a figurative phrasal verb, let

me just help you out here really quickly and give you four phrasal verbs that you will

hear very often.

The first one is "to give up." "Give up." When you think about that, the verb to give,

to give up, it's not used in a literal sense. So, the verb "to give up" means to stop doing

something, sometimes because it's really difficult.

So, hopefully you don't say this, but you could say "English is really difficult. I'm

going to give up." And I would say "Hey, don't give up! It's not so difficult."

"To give up" is the first phrasal verb you're going to hear and see a lot.

Second phrasal verbs you guys are going to hear a lot in English is the phrasal verb

"to find out." So, "find out" would be a synonym of, maybe, the verb to discover, but we use

"find out" a lot more in just, uh, you know, less academic situations.

So, I could say, for example, "I found out that my friend is getting married." I found

out, I discovered that piece of information. So, you're going to hear this a lot, "to find

something out."

The third phrasal verb you guys are going to hear a lot and need is the phrasal verb

"to look forward to something," "to look forward."

"Look forward" is when you are really excited, and happy about something that is going to

happen in the future. If I was, if I was going to travel this year, I could say "I am really

looking forward to my trip this year." "I'm really looking forward to traveling at the

end of the year."

That means that right now I'm anticipating my trip and I feel really excited about it.

What are you looking forward to?

Ok, so, the last phrasal verbs that you guys have to know is actually, I'm going to give

you two phrasal verbs. This is a 2 for 1 special. I'm going to teach you guys the phrasal verbs

"to pick up" and "to drop off." Ok?

The reason I'm teaching both of these is because they're very relevant.

"To pick someone up" or "to drop someone off" means that you're going to go somewhere and

collect someone. It doesn't have to always be a person, it can be an object as well,

like, if I left my keys at Justin's house, I would go there and pick them up. "To pick

my keys up" or "to pick up my keys." It can be separable or inseparable.

The next one is "to drop off." So, "drop off" would be the opposite. If I couldn't go to

pick my keys up from Justin's house, I would ring him and say "Hey Justin, can you drop

my keys off? I've left them at your house."

"To drop off" would be to actually deliver something to someone, ok? And, like I said,

we can use this to people, like, "I'm going to drop my friend off at the party" or "I'm

going to pick my friend up at the party." Ok?

Ok guys, that's my very quick video to teach you guys how to use figurative phrasal verbs

in English and keep listening, because you're going to hear these a lot. This is something

that's very common in English, we use this all the time.

Now, stay tuned because my next video is going to be about how to use literal phrasal verbs.

Sound easy, but there's a few little tricks there that you guys should really know about,

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the full transcript for this video and hear everything and read everything that I'm saying.

Ok guys, thanks a lot for watching, hope you guys really enjoyed this video, and I'll see

you next time on RealLife TV.