A phrasal verb is a verb that is made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition, or both. Typically, their meaning is not obvious from the meanings of the individual words themselves.
Native speakers tend to convey their ideas more with phrasal verbs than with words like ‘eschew’, ‘extinguish’, ‘exterminate’, etc. Phrasal verbs add to the loose and informal elements into speech. Or the speech sound dry and heavy.
That is, they use give up in place of eschew, put out in place of extinguish, root out in place of exterminate.
The differences between a phrasal verb and a verb are:
- Phrasal verbs are multi-words. They consist of 2 or more words.
Ex: add up, back up, check out
2. Their meanings are not very clear from the words themselves. It’s a skill that comes only with practice. You have to look up in dictionaries and see them used in many contexts. Resist the temptation to use ‘out’, ‘off’ with all the verbs just to sound educated. It sounds awfully uneducated. When in doubt, don’t use phrasal verbs.
He backed up my arguments= He supported my arguments because he finds them to be accurate, valid, etc.
They come in 2 flavors. Transitive and Intransitive.
Intransitive Phrasal Verb
It doesn’t take an object to complete its meaning.
His grandmother had cancer, and she passed away (=died) last year.
The car broke down (=stopped working) on the way home.
Transitive Phrasal Verb
It requires an object to complete its meaning.
• He put across his ideas forcefully (=communicated).
She’s given up the job (= left/abandoned).
Now, you can change the position of the object in sentences containing transitive phrasal verbs. But, always go by the conventions. Don’t stick to any rule.
He put across his ideas forcefully. He put his ideas across forcefully.
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
These are a combination of a phrasal verb and a preposition.
put up with something, catch up with something
All right, please keep these things in mind.
- You need to fully understand how to use phrasal verbs viz. their meaning and context.
- Avoid adding ‘out’, ‘up, ‘off’ just to sound ‘cool’. It does exactly the opposite.
- When in doubt, don’t use phrasal verbs.
