Category Archives: Phrasal verbs
Common Phrasal Verbs: To Take Up
To take up something (usually a hobby, sport or activity)
see also: to start doing…
This phrasal verb is usually separated by its object only when the object is a pronoun – not a noun. Both parts of the verb remain together.
This phrasal verb follows the structure : to take up + object.
Definition
“to take up something” means to begin or start doing something (usually a hobby, sport or activity) regularly. Take a look at the following examples:
Common Phrasal Verbs: “to bring about”
To bring about something
see also: to cause, to make happen, to provoke
This phrasal verb is not usually separated by an object. Both parts of the verb must remain together.
This phrasal verb follows the structure : to bring about + object.
Definition
“to bring about something” means to make something happen or to to cause something to happen. Take a look at the following examples:
Example 1
“The current economic crisis has brought about a change in people’s spending habits.”
This means that the economic crisis has caused a change in people’s spending habits.
Example 2
“The riots in Paris brought about the downfall of the French government”.
This means that the riots provoked the downfall of the French government.
The phrasal verb “to bring about” is often collocated with “change”. Other common collocations include: “downfall”, “rise”,”increase”, “decrease”
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Up – Phrasal verbs and prepositions
In the second in our series of posts about the true meaning of prepositions in English, we examine the word up and look at how native speakers perceive the word both in isolation or as a particle in a phrasal verb.
Up – It’s real meaning
In this blog, I will demonstrate that the meaning of up is literally a direction (i.e. the opposite of down). Additionally, after hundreds of years of linguistic evolution, it has come to form part of a variety of what are known as phrasal verbs, frequently with a meaning that falls into one of the following categories:
- completion
- termination
- fulfilment
- increase
- emergence
- construction
- reconciliation/achieving parity
Learning Prepositions – The Human Way
Understanding the complex meaning of English prepositions
Anyone who has learned English as far as intermediate level will know that English owes at least some of its global success to its relatively simple verb structure and word order. Those who have made it beyond B1 level soon realise that English is, perhaps, more complicated than they thought.
Common Phrasal Verbs: “to end up”
To End Up
Meaning: To finally be in a palce or a situation.
Remember that this phrasal verb cannot be split by it’s particle.
Common Phrasal Verbs “to bring up something”
To Bring something up
See also: to mention, to discuss, to vomit
This verb follows the structure: to bring up + object. It is usual for this phrasal verb to be split by its object.
Example: I had hoped that he wouldn’t bring up the argument that we had last week.
Common Phrasal verbs: “to cope with something”
Hello and welcome to our new blog on Phrasal verbs. As an experienced teacher of Cambridge exams I have come to recognise many of the phrasal verbs that commonly appear in reading, listening and use of English papers. In this series of blogs, we will take a look at some of these verbs and help you to understand their meaning.
To cope with something
Also to manage, to handle, to deal with.
This phrasal verbs follows the structure: to cope with + object. It cannot be split by it’s object.
Example 1:
The town hall decided to build more houses in order to cope with the increasing number of immigrants.
The meaning of this sentence is that because of the amount of immigrants entering the town, the town hall decided to build more houses to manage the situation. Continue reading
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