Learn These 33 Essential Phrases for Better English Fluency (with Subtitles)

- [Jack] This is Jack from tofluency.com

and welcome to the To Fluency YouTube channel,

where you're going to learn an area of English

that is my favorite area to learn,

or one of them, in a foreign language.

So when I was studying Spanish,

I used to love learning these types of phrases,

and I'll tell you what they are.

They're called prepositional verbs, prepositional verbs,

and this is where you have a verb,

then a preposition and then an object.

For example,

I love listening to music.

Listen to music, a verb, preposition

and then an object.

And I'm sure, when you've been studying English

and trying to speak English, you're thinking about,

okay, what preposition do I use after this verb?

And for example, in Spanish, you don't use a preposition

after listen (speaking in Spanish).

Excuse me, for the way I speak Spanish,

but you don't use a preposition.

And then in different languages,

you might use a preposition, but it's a different one.

So what you can do in this lesson

is listen to the phrases

and then go to the description and learn the phrases

because they're going to be really useful for you.

And we're gonna go through quite a few today.

I'm going to try and make the examples entertaining

and relevant and fun.

But the key here is to learn the sentences that I'm going

to give you, and then try to use them in similar ways.

So I've talked about how you can practice your writing,

and you can practice your writing by taking these types

of prepositional verbs and creating sentences

that are relevant to your life.

Because a big mistake I find is that,

when a student learns new vocabulary, like a verb,

they try to use it in ways that just don't make sense.

And the way it makes sense is if you learn the verb

plus the preposition plus the object.

And these are just like collocations

and collocations are king,

the words that go together naturally.

So you can learn these in a natural way

by listening to this lesson.

Let's start with believe in, to believe in something.

And this means to have faith

in the existence or truth of something.

And the best example here is a question.

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in ghosts?

Which means do you believe that ghosts exist? Okay?

So to believe in something

is to have faith in the existence.

Now it can also mean to have an opinion

that something is right or desirable.

For example, I don't believe in the way

things are being censored at the moment.

So I don't believe in the way that things are being censored

at the moment, which means I don't have the opinion.

I don't agree with this. I think it is wrong.

The next one is depend on, depend on.

I hear a lot of people here using depend in,

but no, it's depend on.

And again, it's a great one to know. I use it all the time.

For example, if somebody says,

"Will I become fluent in English this year?"

I say, "It depends on what you do with your time

"and how much time you spend learning English."

So it depends on different factors.

You might hear parents say something like,

"How much TV time you get later

"will depend on how much you tidy today."

Or, "Whether we go on vacation this year

"will depend on flight restrictions."

So whether we go on vacation this year

will depend on flight restrictions.

The next one is, look at. Look at this.

Look at this, look at this.

And we use this to bring someone's attention to

or their eyes to something.

The other day, it was raining, but the sun was also out,

so I went outside and I said to Kate,

"Quick, look at the rainbow, look at the rainbow."

So pay attention or use your eyes to see the rainbow.

Quick, look at the rainbow outside.

Or you might say, "That guy's looking at me in a weird way."

That guy is looking at me in a weird way.

Look at can also be used

when thinking about something carefully.

For example, I'll take a look at what you sent me

and make a decision later.

So I'll take a look at what you sent me

and make a decision later.

Another example.

Could you take a quick look at my new lesson plan?

Could you take a quick look at my new lesson plan?

Number four is apologize to,

to apologize to someone.

For example, can you apologize to your sister?

You shouldn't have said that.

Could you apologize to your sister?

And my boss finally apologized to me

for shouting the other day.

My boss finally apologized to me for shouting the other day.

Now here, I am stressing the word finally

because it's taken him a long time to do it.

My boss finally apologized to me for shouting the other day.

Number five is to agree with.

For example, I don't agree with a thing you said.

I don't agree with a thing you said.

Now in a recent podcast episode, I talked about the example

of I couldn't disagree more or I couldn't agree more,

but in this case, we're using the simple version,

agree with someone.

I don't agree with a thing you said.

Or we all know that person who never agrees

with what we do and is always critical.

You can say, "Can you just agree with me

"for once in your life?"

Can you just agree with me for once in your life?

And I don't say this very often,

but I agree with the prime minister.

He's right.

I agree with the prime minister. He's right.

The next one is deal with something,

and this can have various definitions,

but we're going to focus on to take action

to do something or to handle a situation.

For example, I can't deal with everything right now.

I can't deal with everything right now.

Things are overwhelming. I have too much stuff going on.

I have to do this, have to do that.

I can't deal with everything right now,

which means I can't handle the situation.

Everything is too overwhelming for me,

and I can't take action on everything.

Another example is

he's dealing with his new school really well,

which means he's adapting to the new school really well.

Sometimes, when somebody starts a new school,

it's difficult for them.

They don't know what to do.

They don't have any friends. They don't know their teachers.

But in this example,

he's dealing with his new school really well.

And in the workplace you might hear,

"Yes, I'll deal with it in the morning.

"Don't worry, boss."

I'll deal with it in the morning,

which means you'll do what you need to do in the morning.

The next one is one that I actually used yesterday

because we were at a pool party and I asked my children,

"Did you thank them for the birthday party?"

So to thank somebody for something.

Did you think grandma for the present?

I just want to thank you for being here on this channel.

I just want to thank you for listening to my podcast.

Number eight is suffer from, to suffer from something.

And this means to have some kind of problem with something.

Often it can be medical, too.

So for example,

I'm suffering from a lack of sleep at the moment.

I have a problem because I'm not sleeping very well.

I'm suffering from a lack of sleep at the moment.

And I'm suffering from a little lack

of self-esteem right now.

Now self-esteem is similar to confidence.

I'm suffering from a little lack of self esteem right now.

The next one is smell of, to smell of something.

Now, sometimes my wife comes home and says,

"Ugh, this house smells of sardines,"

or, "This house smells of liver,"

because I like to eat beef liver.

So to smell of something.

Another example is this car smells of wet dog.

So if you've had a wet dog in your car,

there's a very specific smell.

So this car smells of wet dog.

Number 10 is laugh at, laugh at.

You're laughing at me. Do I amuse use you?

There's a great scene in "Goodfellas", which you might know

where someone's laughing at someone who says,

"Do I amuse you?

"But you're laughing at me."

And you can also just ask the question,

"What are you laughing at?"

What are you laughing at?

So if somebody is laughing in a room,

you might want to ask them, "What are you laughing at?"

And then, this is a true story,

and this might happen with you, but it's okay.

They started laughing at me

when I started talking in Spanish.

They started laughing at me

when I started talking in Spanish.

We have two more to go.

Number 11 is think about, to think about something.

And there's a great line here from a Robbie Williams song,

who is a British singer, and it's called "Feel", I think.

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

But he says, "I'm contemplating thinking about thinking,"

which think about that for a moment (laughs lightly).

I'm contemplating thinking about thinking.

It's a great line

because it's basically saying three things.

It's like looking in various mirrors. It's quite confusing.

But maybe you understand it.

I'm contemplating thinking about thinking.

But here's a more simple example.

Let us think about it for a couple of days

and get back to you.

So let us think about it for a couple of days

and get back to you.

And sometimes you might just want to ask somebody,

"What are you, uh, what are you thinking about right now?"

What are you thinking about right now?

And the last one is, forget about. Forget about it.

Forget about it, which is a New York accent.

But yeah, let's give you an example here.

Did you remember to call Mr. Smith?

(gasps) Oh, no, I forgot about that.

I forgot about that. I feel terrible.

I forgot about it. I just completely forgot about it.

And then, if somebody brings up

or starts talking about something in the past,

but you haven't thought about it for a while, you might say,

"Oh, man, I completely forgot about that holiday."

I completely forgot about that holiday,

but now you remember it.

And an example from "The Office" is,

"I think Susan's forgotten about the meeting again."

Susan isn't in the meeting, you might say,

"I think Susan's forgotten about the meeting again."

Okay, so those are our 12 prepositional verbs:

believe in, depend on, agree with, deal with,

thank for, suffer from, smell of, look at,

laugh at, think about, forget about, and apologize to.

I forgot about that one.

So like I said, go to the description,

look at the sentences there and think about ways

that you can learn these over the long term.

And also check out that song

by Robbie Williams called "Feel".

It's a good song, actually.

And like I said, create some of your own sentences here

that are relevant to your life.

For example, you might want to say,

"Ah, I completely forgot about."

Complete the sentence.

"Why do people laugh at me when I?" Complete the sentence.

"I'm always thinking about." Complete the sentence.

And use the link in the description to the grammar checker

so that it can correct any mistakes you make.

And if it works properly, it should correct any mistakes

you make with the prepositions, too.

So it's a very powerful tool.

There's a link in the description to that.

So if you have enjoyed this episode,

then please like and share this.

So send this YouTube video to your friends by WhatsApp

or messenger messages on your phone.

Call them and speak to them in English

and tell them about this YouTube channel.

And then, be sure to watch more of my videos.

I have many videos on this channel,

and if you've seen them before, watch them again.

Get that repetition, but I'm sure

there are many videos you've not seen,

so spend some time with me today.

Maybe check out the conversational lessons.

I'll leave a link to that playlist in the description.

Okay, thanks again for being here,

and I'll speak to you soon.

Bye-bye.

(gentle music)