Phrasal verbs: introduction

When you use it

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word (up, off, on, out, for, after) that together have one meaning. Often the meaning is not the sum of the parts: give up means "stop trying", and has nothing to do with giving. Spoken and informal English is full of them, and for many everyday actions the phrasal verb is the normal word, while the one-word verb sounds formal: wake up rather than awaken, find out rather than discover.

How it is formed

The verb part changes like any verb: wake up, wakes up, woke up, woken up, waking up. The particle never changes.

The main grammar question is where the object goes. With separable phrasal verbs, a noun can go before or after the particle, but a pronoun (it, them, him, her, me) must go between the verb and the particle. Turn it off is correct; turn off it is not. With inseparable phrasal verbs the particle stays glued to the verb, and the object always follows: look after the children, look after them.

There is no rule that tells you which verbs are separable, so it is worth learning each phrasal verb together with an object: pick someone up, look for something. The word page for each verb shows the pattern.

Slavic verbs use prefixes to change meaning: ви-йти, за-йти, піді-йти in Ukrainian, вы-йти, за-йти, подо-йти in Russian. English phrasal verbs do the same job with a particle after the verb instead of a prefix before it. The habit of building meaning from a base verb plus a small piece is familiar; only the position is new.

Examples

• I wake up at seven on weekdays.
• Please turn off the lights when you leave. Turn them off, not turn off them.
• Anna is looking for her glasses again.
• Can you pick up the children from school today?
• Tom gave up smoking last year.
• Put on your coat. It is cold outside.
• We got on the bus at the main station.
• I want to find out what happened at the meeting.

Common mistakes

• ✗ Turn off it. / Pick up me at six.
  ✓ Turn it off. / Pick me up at six.
  With a separable phrasal verb, a pronoun object goes between the verb and the particle. This is the single most frequent error with phrasal verbs.
• ✗ She looks the children after.
  ✓ She looks after the children.
  Look after is inseparable. The object never goes between the verb and the particle, whether it is a noun or a pronoun.
• ✗ Wait me at the station. / Listen me.
  ✓ Wait for me at the station. / Listen to me.
  Ukrainian чекати мене and Russian ждать меня take a direct object. In English the small word is part of the verb, and dropping it makes the sentence ungrammatical.
• ✗ Tom gave up to smoke.
  ✓ Tom gave up smoking.
  A verb that follows a phrasal verb takes the -ing form, because the particle behaves like a preposition. See the lesson on verb + -ing or verb + to.
• ✗ Tom woke up himself at six.
  ✓ Tom woke up at six.
  Ukrainian прокинувся and Russian проснулся carry the reflexive -ся, which pushes learners to add himself. English wake up already contains the whole meaning; add an object only when you wake someone else.

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