Phrasal Verbs

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Gold Forest English podcast. My name is Jordan.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about prepositions. Prepositions are small words like in, on, to, with, out, and many more. We use prepositions very often in English, especially in phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are actions that use a verb, which is an action word, and a preposition.

There are lots and lots of phrasal verbs. Some of the most common ones are listen to, pick up, look at. These phrasal verbs are very common, and you probably know many of them in English already.

So today, I want to talk about some phrasal verbs that can be very different if we make an error with the preposition. If we change the preposition, maybe we use the wrong one, we say to instead of in, or maybe we forget the preposition. If we make one of these mistakes, some phrasal verbs can really, really, really change their meaning.

Today, I want to talk about a few of these examples. As always, I've got a blog post on GoldForestAcademy.com. In that blog post, I've got five common examples that you can take a look at and learn about the differences. All five of them are very common in everyday life, so they're helpful to learn.

So let's start with a phrasal verb which could be very scary to somebody.

The word report is a noun and a verb. A report is a document. It's a piece of information about a specific topic. You might have to write a report at school or in your job. This is the noun.

Report is also a verb, and it means to give information about something to someone. So you're talking about a specific topic to a person that wants to know this information.

If we take a phrasal verb that uses "report", a very common one would be report to you, report to him, report to her. Report to is the phrasal verb that means I am going to give information to this person.

For example, if we're having a conversation and you ask me to research something for a vacation, we are going on vacation together. I might research some hotels, and I can say to you, I will look at some different hotels, I will do some research about the hotels, and I will report to you. I will tell you the information about the hotels.

However, if we forget the preposition and we just say, I will report you, this has a very different meaning. I will report you means I'm going to tell the police or somebody important, someone in authority, maybe the government, but often the police. They have a lot of power and authority. I'm going to tell these people about you, your crimes, your bad actions, your bad behaviour.

So if I say, I'm going to report you, you might feel very scared, very shocked, thinking, "What did I do wrong? What is he going to tell the police?" Report you is very different from report to you. Just that simple preposition to makes a big difference in the meaning.

Phrasal verbs are one of the most difficult parts of English because there are so many. There are so, so many English phrasal verbs that are used commonly, and they often have very specific and very different meanings.

Look at means see something.

Look up means find information about it on the internet or in a book.

Drop off is a casual phrase that means go to sleep.

Drop in means casually visit somebody.

Drop out means to quit school before you finish, to leave school or university before you graduate.

So phrasal verbs are very, very difficult. They are often very varied, very different, and there are a lot of them in English.

So what's the best way to learn phrasal verbs?

Of course, you could look at lists of phrasal verbs and study lists and lists and lists of hundreds of phrasal verbs, but that's quite difficult for most people. If you can study in that way, then congratulations, that's great. But for most people, their brain cannot take in long lists of information.

So what I recommend is to read and listen to English, natural English, about normal life topics. Not just study books, study videos, and study podcasts, but also things that you enjoy.

Read in English about things that you like. If you like cooking, read about cooking. If you enjoy jazz music, listen to people interviewing jazz musicians or talking about jazz music. If you enjoy the content, your brain is much more connected, and it can learn a lot more. It can receive more information if the brain is happy.

In normal English, phrasal verbs are very common. So just listen and read normal English, and over time, you will get more and more context, more and more information that you can understand in English. This is a really good way to build your vocabulary.

Just enjoy things in English. It's simple. You don't have to translate everything. You don't have to understand everything. The key is that you enjoy it.

So try to read, watch, or listen to things that you are genuinely, really interested in. It's a challenge, but try your best.

That's all for today's episode. Thank you very much for listening. Check out the blog post on GoldForestAcademy.com if you want to see more examples of these common phrasal verbs that have very different meanings when we change the preposition.

Thank you very much for listening. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you in the next episode. Goodbye.