Talking about Parties in English: 3 Phrasal Verbs You Need to Know (Lots of Examples)

- Imagine that your friend is going to a party

but you don't have an invitation so you ask them...

Hello everybody, this is Jack from tofluency.com

and welcome to this English lesson

where you're going to learn three phrasal verbs

related to parties.

My wife and I love throwing parties.

We love going to parties too

and we use these phrasal verbs on a consistent basis.

Number three is one that most of you

won't have heard before but it's a really fun one to use

and the other two are just really common

and two that you need to know.

So let's get started.

When my wife and I throw a party,

one of us usually ask the other

what if no one shows up?

What if no one shows up to our party?

This is our worst nightmare.

We have spent all this time organizing the party,

cleaning the house, getting the food and drinks,

and then nobody shows up.

The first phrasal verb is to show up.

And I imagine that you can understand

what this means from context,

but you can also say, what if nobody comes to the party?

What if nobody shows up?

What if nobody comes?

So in this case, to show up means to come.

Here are some more examples.

Paul didn't show up to the Spanish class today.

Do you think he'll show up to the meeting?

How many people showed up to the party?

When going to a party, it can be difficult to know

exactly what you should wear.

I'm sure you have experienced this, right?

When you are going to an event or a party

and you just have no idea what the dress code is

and what you should put on.

You might ask somebody, do we need

to dress up for this event?

Do we need to dress up for this event?

To dress up means to wear something smart

or something formal.

For example, wearing a shirt for somebody's birthday party.

A band that I use to follow called The View

actually used this in one of their songs.

Here is an example.

I've had the same jeans on for four days now,

I'm going to go to a disco in the middle of town

everybody's dressing up, I'm dressing down.

I'll leave a link to the song in the description

but what they're saying is that they're going

to this party, to this disco,

and everybody else is wearing something smart,

something formal, but I'm not.

I am dressing down.

A great example of this is that many companies

have something called dress-down Fridays,

dress-down Fridays, and this is when people

can go to work wearing jeans and a t-shirt

instead of wearing a suit or something more formal.

A company I used to work for had this policy too

but our department wasn't allowed to dress down on Fridays

and this is because we met clients on Fridays

so therefore, we had to be smart, we had to be presentable

when we met with clients.

Number three is a fun one, okay?

And imagine that your friend is going to a party

but you don't have an invitation.

So you ask them, can I tag along with you?

Can I tag along with you?

This is asking, can I come with you to the party

even though I don't have a formal invitation.

Even though I haven't been invited.

Here are more examples.

If you don't mind, I'm just going to tag along.

We're going to that party, do you want to tag along?

Do you think they'll mind if I tag along?

So the next time you tag along with someone to a party,

dress up just in case, and hope that everyone else

shows up wearing something formal.

What I want you to do now is this,

if you are new here, be sure to subscribe

and then everybody, leave a comment

giving me some more examples of these phrasal verbs.

This will help you practice

and help you understand these phrasal verbs better.

And then watch one of these videos over here

to learn some more phrasal verbs.

Thank you so much for watching.

(upbeat music)