Four Kinds of English Phrasal Verbs?
English phrasal verbs sound hard for many students. You can study and learn them easily here.
Step 1 is to start believing they are easy.
Step 2 is to study a little about them.
Step 3 is to memorize their meanings.
Step 4 is to practice listening to these idiomatic expressions in the context of a story.
Step 1. Believe they are easy. You can try several things to start believing English phrasal verbs are easy to learn.
1. tell yourself they are easy. Repeat this over and over.
2. Imagine studying them and practicing listening to them in stories. Feel relaxed and happy as you do this visualization.
3. Imagine using them in your own English conversations with ease and comfort.
4. Repeat the visualization often. Make is clear, peaceful and feel the emotions of happiness and ease strongly as you do the visualization; be sure to see yourself smiling.
Step 2. Study a little about them.
What are they? English phrasal verbs are two-part verbs. They have a verb and a preposition together to make a new unit of meaning. The new meaning may not be easy to guess from the two words together:
For example, “Blow up” is made of the verb blow (like blowing out your mouth, and the preposition ‘up’, but it does not mean blowing air upwards; rather it means explode.
Study about how to use them: can the object go between the verb and the preposition? Sometimes it can (separable) and sometimes it can’t (inseparable).
Learn about these two but don’t memorize them too deeply; it is better to learn how to use them by listening to them in stories and mimicking the stories than to think about them (which slows down your english speaking).
Separable: Blow up
I don’t like that old building. I want to blow it up.
Inseparable: Run into
I don’t like my boss, but I ran into him in the supermarket yesterday.
More:
There are some phrasal verbs that need an object after them (transitive) and some phrasal verbs cannot have an object after them (intransitive). don’t think too deeply about this point; Just be aware that there are two patterns, and then try to listen for these patterns in the stories when you practice.
-Transitive: Put off
I have a lot of work to do. I will not put off doing it until tomorrow; I will do it now.
-Intransitive: Back out
Jim promised to go to the show with us, but now he is backing out. He wants to stay home instead.
Step 3. Now that you know the kinds of phrasal verbs, you have to memorize the meanings for the English phrasal verbs. Each phrasal verb story I have on this site has a list of the verbs before the story. The meanings are there. Read them. read them out loud. Write the meanings in your own notebook. Try to draw a picture representing the meaning for yourself.
Review these meanings regularly.
Step 4. Next comes the really easy part: listen to the stories. Read the stories. You need to listen for the English phrasal verbs in every story. Follow the suggested study practice I outlined on the main page of this site here. the key point is to review, review, review. Change stories once a week or once every two weeks. Just do it!
