Speak REAL English in 30 minutes: Advanced English Lesson

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa  

from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Can  you speak like this? Let's talk about it.  

Let's imagine this scene. You're sitting in class  and there's just no way that you can keep up.  

The teacher is talking too fast and all of the  concepts are just advanced or maybe too boring for  

you. So you start to fall asleep and eventually,  you just give in and sleep on your desk. 

Has that ever happened to you? I'm ashamed  to say, it has definitely happened to me  

one time in Geometry class, I fell asleep,  that's another story for another time.  

You just heard me use two amazing phrasal verbs,  to keep up and to give in. And today, you are  

going to learn a lot of common phrasal verbs that  you can add to your daily life so that when you  

speak, you can speak exactly the way you want to  and impress other people with your amazing skills. 

But first, let's answer the question, what in  the world is a phrasal verb? Well, a phrasal verb  

is a two or three part verb. Let's take a  look at the ones I just used to keep up,  

to keep is our main verb here, and then we  add the word up. This is called a participle,  

sometimes a preposition and together, to keep  up is very different than just to keep. The  

other phrasal verb I used is to give in. We have the word give, plus the participle  

in. To give is very different than to give in.  In this lesson, you're going to learn how to  

accurately use these phrasal verbs so that you  don't accidentally use the wrong words. And of  

course, to help you remember everything that  you learn in today's lesson, I've created a free  

PDF worksheet that you can download with the link  in the description. There will be all of today's  

phrasal verbs, all of the definitions, a lot of  sample sentences, and at the end of the worksheet,  

you can answer Vanessa's challenge question. So click on the link in the description to  

download this free PDF worksheet today. All right,  let's get started. In today's lesson, you will see  

three of my most popular phrasal verb lessons  including examples from everyday life. I hope  

that you will learn a lot, let's get started.  To add up, to add up. At the end of the month,  

I have to add up all my purchases.  I have to add them up, it's a lot. 

To bring up, to bring up. He brings  up sports in every conversation  

and she doesn't know what to say. He always brings  it up to blow up. To blow up, to blow up. She's  

going to blow up when she realizes that her  friend lied to her. She's going to blow up.  

To end up, to end up. I wonder  how the story will end up,  

will the characters fall in love? Will they  be killed? I wonder how it will end up? 

To back up, to back up. Don't forget to back  up your computer so that you don't lose all  

your hard work. Don't don't forget to  back it up. To show up, to show up.  

Why did Dan show up at my door? Oh, he lives  here. To keep up with, to keep up with. Sometimes  

it's hard to keep up with the mail, bills and  messages. How can I keep up with it? I don't know. 

To get along with, to get along with.  

We get along with each other because we both  like games. We get along with each other  

especially when I win the game, that's  the best. To agree with, to agree with.  

I don't agree with this article. In fact, I don't  agree with it at all. To deal with, to deal with.  

When you have two cats, you have to deal with  a lot of cat fur, you have to deal with it.  

To hang out, to hang out. My cats  like to hang out with each other,  

they are best friends. They love hanging out. To check in, to check out. We have to check  

in at the hotel after 3:00 p.m. and check  out at 11:00 a.m. To fill out, to fill out.  

He is filling out a job application. Do you  think he'll get the job as a professional model?  

He's filling it out right now. We'll  see, To figure out, to figure out.  

I can't figure out why my tree died so  quickly. Maybe I gave it too much water? 

To find out, to find out. Vanessa found out  that Dan was really a woman, she found it out.  

Oh my goodness. To cut down on, to cut  down on. He's trying to cut down on sweets,  

especially chocolate chip  cookies. To count on, to count on.  

You can always count on me to offer you tea  when you visit my house, I have a lot of tea.  

To try on, to try on. He didn't try on the shoes  when he bought them. Oh no, they don't fit,  

it's just too bad. To keep on, to keep on.  

Maybe if I keep on drinking coffee all night,  I can finish my report. Just keep on drinking.  

To break into, to break into. Late last night,  Dan secretly broke into my hidden stash of  

chocolate. Oh no, who broke into my chocolate?  It's a disaster. To get into, to get into.  

Even though Dan is an adult, he got into Pokemon  last week. He plays nonstop and won't stop looking  

at it. He's really into it. To bump into, to run into.  

Last week, I bumped into my college friend on the  sidewalk. I can't believe I ran into him here.  

To apply for, to apply for. I decided not to  apply for a visa because it's too expensive.  

I didn't apply for it. To look for, to look for.  

I looked for my cat's toys and I found them under  the piano. I'm glad I looked for them there. 

To drop out of, to drop out of. She told  him that she decided to drop out of the  

program because it was too hard, she dropped  out of it. To make fun of, to make fun of.  

Dan made fun of Vanessa's new style. He laughed at  her a lot, but she didn't like being made fun of,  

she felt really sad. To break down, to break down.  A good teacher will break down a complicated topic  

so that it's more understandable. He's breaking  it down for his student, and she understands it. 

To give in, to give in.  

Even though I was on a diet, I gave in when he  offered me a cookie, it was too hard to resist.  

To call back, to call back.  

I called him one hour ago, why didn't he call  me back yet? What's he doing? To come across,  

to come across. I came across a fascinating  fact about Steve Jobs in his biography.  

He said that doing drugs was one of his top  three most important experiences in life. 

To go through, to go through.  

Dan is going through a hard time because he  doesn't have any more coffee. Will he survive?  

To get over, to get over. It was hard for  me to get over the death of my oldest cat.  

He was 18 years old and I loved him a lot.  To look forward to, to look forward to.  

After a long busy day, he looks forward to playing  the piano and relaxing his mind, it's so nice. 

Buying. Try on, get into, fit into.  Dan is trying on this striped shirt.  

He already tried on a red one. Which  one should he get? He tried it on.  

Do you think that Dan will be able to get into  this shirt? He used to fit into it 30 years ago.  

Dressing. Put on, throw on, have on, take off.  

Dan puts on a hoodie because it's a little  bit chilly outside today. He puts it on. He's  

late for work, so he's just going to throw on his  hoodie and run out the door. He's throwing it on. 

Dan has had on his hoodie all day  even though it's spring. He had it on.  

After wearing his hoodie all day, he is finally  ready to take it off. Closing. Zip up, button up,  

tuck in, roll up. Dan zips up his coat to get  ready to go outside. He zips it up. He makes  

sure to button up his dress shirt carefully  before his date with me. He buttons it up. 

After buttoning it up, it's time to  tuck in his shirt. He tucks it in.  

It's warm this afternoon, so Dan decides to  roll up his sleeves before going outside.  

He rolls them up. Fancy. Dress up, dress up like.  

Dan is really dressing up for this date. Do  you think he's going to change his pants?  

Dan is dressed up like an annoying tourist. Notice  the difference between dress up which is fancy  

and dress up like which is to  imitate the way someone dresses. 

Weather. Bundle up, wrap up, strip down. Don't  forget to bundle up before you go outside.  

Make sure you wrap up. It's cold out there.  

When Dan got inside, it was so hot that he needed  to strip down. That feels better. Old. Wear out.  

Dan wore his favorite shorts so much that now  they are completely worn out. He wore them out.  

Shoes. Slip on, slip off,  lace up, break in, kick off. 

Dan slips on his shoes before he  goes outside. He slips them on.  

He quickly slips them off. Every  time he goes inside the house.  

Dan is lacing up his hiking boots and then he ties  the laces into a double knot. He laces them up.  

These are new boots, so needs  to break them in for a few days.  

Dan kicks off his hiking boots after a long  hike. Oh, that feels good. He kicks them off. 

Modifying. Let out, take in. This  shirt is a little too small. Dan  

needs to get it let out if he wants to wear  it comfortably. The tailor will let it out.  

Dan really likes these pants, but they're too big.  Maybe he will get them taken in professionally.  

The tailor will take them in. Tidying. Fold up,  hang up, put away. After washing his favorite  

cat tank top, Dan folds it up carefully. Now that  this video is finished, Dan hangs up his coat and  

puts it away in the closet. He hangs it up. Now I'd like to give you a little test. Do you  

think you can fill in the blank with the correct  phrasal verb? I'm going to read a sentence with a  

blank and I want you to think about which phrasal  verb would be best in the sentence. And then I'm  

going to read the sentence a second time with the  correct phrasal verb. I'd like you to also try to  

read these sentences out loud with me. It's going  to be a great chance to remember the phrasal verbs  

because you're speaking out loud, and also you're  trying to think of which one's the best fit. 

All right, let's get started. After going to  Paris, Dan felt inspired to _____ more often  

instead of wearing sweatpants and a hoodie every  day. After going to Paris, Dan felt inspired to  

dress up more often instead of wearing  sweatpants and a hoodie every day.  

He went to the store to _____ some classy  shirts. What do you think goes in the blank?  

He went to the store to try on some classy shirts. First, he _____ his hoodie that was _____ after  

years of daily use. First, he took off his hoodie  that was worn out after years of daily use.  

As he was _____ the first colored  shirt, he took a look in the mirror.  

As he was buttoning up the first collared shirt,  

he took a look in the mirror. Vanessa  was going to love his new style.  

He carefully _____ the shirts and came out of  the dressing room to look at the shoe selection. 

He carefully hung up the shirts and came out of  the dressing room to look at the shoe selection.  

He _____ brown dress shoes, but all of the  shoes seemed too stiff and uncomfortable.  

He laced up some brown dress shoes, but all  the shoes seemed too stiff and uncomfortable.  

It would take too long to _____. So  Dan decided just to buy the shirts. 

It would take too long to break them in, so Dan  decided to just buy the shirts. Half-classy was  

better than not classy at all. All right, now  I'm going to read the story out loud all together  

one more time. I want you to try to read it out  loud with me to exercise your pronunciation, to  

challenge your memory and just to be able to use  English. All right, let's read that full story. 

After going to Paris, Dan felt inspired  to dress up more often instead of wearing  

sweatpants and a hoodie every day. He went  to the store to try on some classy shirts.  

First, he took off his hoodie that was worn out  after years of daily use. As he was buttoning  

up the first colored shirt, he took a look in the  mirror. Vanessa was going to love his new style. 

He carefully hung up the shirts and came out of  the dressing room to look at the shoe selection.  

He laced up some brown dress  shoes, but all the shoes seemed too  

stiff and uncomfortable. It would  take too long to break them in,  

so Dan decided to just buy the shirts.  Half-classy was better than not classy at all.  

Every morning, I wake up to my  alarm clock or I wake up to my baby. 

I try not to dose off again and push snooze, but  sometimes I do. Finally, I turn off my alarm clock  

and roll out of bed. Notice the pronunciation of  this phrasal verb to roll out of bed? I didn't say  

I roll out of bed. I said, I roll out of bed. The  T here is going to change to a D sound. And this  

means that you are not so enthusiastic  about waking up. You just roll out of bed. 

You could also say I get out of bed, that's a  more neutral phrasal verb, but if you want to  

let people know you are real tired when  you woke up this morning, you might say,  

"Oh, when my alarm clock went off, I just rolled  out of bed, walked to the car and went to work."  

You were like a zombie this morning. You just  rolled out of bed. Next, I go into the bathroom  

and wash off my face. Wash off does not  mean that I am completely erasing my face. 

You can just say wash my face, but we can also  use this phrasal verb wash off my face if you feel  

like you have some kind of dirt or grime that's  thick on your face maybe after you were sleeping.  

There's some, we call this sleep, that crusty  stuff in your eyes. You might want to wash the  

sleep out of your eyes. So we are washing it out.  Wash the sleep out of my eyes or wash off my face. 

Next. I will put on some makeup. Usually  I just put some makeup under my eyes to  

mask how tired I really am and I will put  that away. Sometimes I put on my glasses  

for the day and sometimes, I choose to put in  my contacts. Now we're saying put on my glasses  

because they're going on my face, but I'm putting  in my contacts because they're going effectively  

in my eyeball. They're going in my eyes. So  I put in my contacts and I put on my glasses. 

After I've washed off my face, put on some makeup,  put in my contacts or put on my glasses. It's time  

to brush out my hair. We could say simply brush  out my hair and that means you are getting the  

knots out of your hair, or it could mean that you  are taking your hair out of some kind of thing.  

For me, this is a braid. So I'm taking my hair  out of the braid and I'm brushing out my hair. 

It's kind of like erasing the knots from my  hair. I'm brushing out the knots from my hair  

and now it is wavy. Usually I do this on days  that I record videos. On other days, my hair is  

just a wild mess, but because I am recording a  video today, you get to see behind the scenes,  

taking my hair out of braids. It is as simple  and easy way to have wavy hair, and I think it's  

a lot of fun. You get to have braids, you get to  have wavy hair and it's as you can see, takes 10  

seconds. Amazing, that's what I like the most. I don't know about you, but I hardly ever have  

my hair down. This is what it's called when your  hair is not tied back. This is a hair tie. There  

are a lot of regional words for what to call  this thing. I call it a hair tie, but because I'm  

a mother, I have two young children. I'm  always looking down or helping or playing  

and working in the garden. I'm always doing a  lot of things. I can't have my hair in my face. 

So that means that I need to use a hair tie and I  need to tie back my hair. We can use two different  

phrasal verbs for this. We can say tie back  or tie up and you can get the image here. I'm  

tying it back or I'm tying it up, and it means the  same thing. I'm making this. Do you know what this  

is called? It's little bit strange. It's called  a ponytail. A pony is a small horse, but you can  

get the image of a tail of a horse. It kind of  looks like this, right? Swish, swish, swish. 

So I'm making a ponytail in the back of my hair.  What if I had two? What if I had two of these and  

I wanted to tie up my hair like this? Do you know  what these are called when you have two hair ties?  

Well, it is not a ponytail because ponies  don't have two tails. Instead, these are called  

pigtails. Pigs don't have two tails, but I guess  this is just referring to how a tail of a pig is  

curly. Maybe originally pigtails were curly,  I'm not exactly sure, but these are pigtails. 

Sometimes I wear pigtails, sometimes I don't, but  they get in the way when I'm trying to do things.  

So usually, I use that first expression. I tie  back my hair or I use a clip and we could say,  

"I pull back my hair." So here you can see, I'm  pulling back my hair and putting it up in this  

clip. So here we used similar ideas, but with  two different verbs. To tie up, to tie back,  

to pull up and pull back. It just depends on  what device you're using, a clip or a hair tie. 

They're interchangeable too. You can pull back  your hair with a hair tie. No one's going to  

figuratively split hairs over this. This means  get upset about small little differences. Nobody's  

going to get upset about these small differences  so you can use them interchangeably. Next, very  

important. I've got my toothbrush and I need to  put on the toothpaste and simply brush my teeth. 

I need to spit out the toothpaste. After  spitting out the toothpaste, I need to  

put back my toothbrush into the little toothbrush  cup. Now that I'm ready from the shoulders up,  

I need to get dressed. Specifically, I  need to pick out my clothes. I think I'm  

going to wear this dress today, it's a  lovely summer day. So I picked this out. 

I do have a closet where I could put clothes,  but for some reason, I just like to have  

this little bar here to put my most used  clothes on. I find myself more likely  

to hang them up and to take care of them. If  it's really close to my bed, where I get changed,  

I change my clothes before I go to bed. It's  easy for me to remember this. I also have some  

drawers, some dresser drawers with some clothes  in them like socks or pants, things like this,  

but it is summertime so I'm going to only  wear this sundress that I picked out. 

Usually by then, my baby is awake and it's  time for me to pick him up. Good morning baby.  

Is that how you feel about the morning? You  want to tell us what it's like to be a baby?  

What's it like to be a baby? Is that really what  it's like? Oh, wow. Yeah, [inaudible 00:26:37].  

I never drink coffee, but most mornings, I  make some tea. To make tea, I need to heat  

up some water in a kettle. We can call  this a tea kettle, a hot water kettle,  

or just a kettle. And after the water has heated  up, I need to pour out the water into my teapot. 

After the tea has steeped for three or four  minutes, I need to pour out the tea into  

my mug or we could say simply I need to pour  the tea or we could say pour out the tea,  

that's fine. Or we could say, I'm going to  fill up my I mug with some delicious tea.  

This is some green tea that I added some dried  lavender to. I have a lavender bush in my  

yard and I put some dried lavender in here and  added it to the green tea. It smells amazing. 

I forgot to show you, but I also whip up some  breakfast. To whip up means that you're making  

something really quickly. Usually, it's  not very thoughtful, it's pretty simple.  

And for me this morning, I just whipped up  a piece of toast. Typically this means that  

you're making something instead of just cutting  something. So for example, part of my breakfast  

is this cantaloupe that came from our garden. A cantaloupe is a melon, I don't know if they  

have it in your country, but it's pretty typical  here. We actually grew this in our garden.  

When I cut this cantaloupe, I wouldn't say that  I whipped up the cantaloupe because I didn't make  

it. I didn't create this even though yes, it  did come from our garden. But instead, because  

the toast, I put some butter on it, I put some jam  on it. I actually made it in a way we could say  

I whipped up some breakfast, but if you're just  opening a granola bar and eating a granola bar, or  

if you're just cutting a piece of fruit and eating  it, you're not really whipping up breakfast. 

You have to have some kind of making  or creating that happens. So for me,  

I whipped up breakfast, I made a piece of toast  and then I cut up this cantaloupe. Finally,  

it's time for me to go over my plans for the  day. Go over is simply another way to say review.  

Usually, I try to be pretty organized because  there's so much going on in my life. I have a  

toddler, a newborn, a husband so I need to keep  up my relationship. I'm also an individual. 

So I need to do things for myself as well,  and I am your English teacher and I run my  

own English teaching business. So there's a  lot of different hats that I have to wear.  

For me, the key to my sanity is to keep organized.  So I usually have a list of the things that I want  

to accomplish that day or maybe that week. And  in the morning, I go over my plans for the day  

because I work here from home, I don't need to  go anywhere to work, but if you are going to the  

office at the end of your morning routine, when  you open the door of your house and leave your  

house, you can say, "I'm heading out the door." This isn't just your head going out the door,  

it just means that you are leaving your  house. I'm heading out the door or I'm  

heading to work. We use that expression head  to talk about the movement here. I'm heading  

out the door. I'm heading to work. Where are you  going? I'm heading to work. Great, we can use this  

phrasal verb. Congratulations on learning so many  real phrasal verbs for daily English conversation. 

Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet  in the description. You can click on that link and  

download all of these phrasal verbs, definitions,  sample sentences, Vanessa's challenge question,  

and it is all free for you my lovely students. And  now, I have a question for you. In the comments,  

can you use one of these phrasal verbs that  you learned today? Use it in the comments.  

Try to read your sentence out loud, and I look  forward to seeing your sentences. This is a great  

chance to use what you've learned and remember it. Well, thank you so much for learning English with  

me. I will see you again next Friday for a new  lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next  

step is to download the free PDF worksheet for  this lesson. With this free PDF, you will master  

today's lesson and never forget what you have  learned. You can be a confident English speaker.  

Don't forget to Subscribe to my YouTube channel  for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.