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The English language has quite a few strange characteristics, and one of the most confusing for many ESL learners is phrasal verbs. What are they, and how can you learn them?

What is a phrasal verb?

A phrasal verb is a verb that has two or sometimes three words. The first word is a verb and the second (and third) is an adverb or preposition. For example,

Take off

Many phrasal verbs unfortunately have more than one meaning, like a lot of verbs. For example,

Take off has several meanings, including:

remove clothing, e.g. Take off your jacket and sit down.

leave the ground, e.g. The plane took off on time.

subtract, e.g. They take off $50 from the original price.

Native speakers obviously understand which meaning is being used according to the context. For learners that can be harder, even if you can often guess the correct meaning. For example, Take off your jacket is quite easy to understand.

The difficult thing about many phrasal verbs is that they often have a meaning that’s quite different to the original meaning of the verb. For example,

Look up to = admire

Break down = stop working

Take after = be similar to a parent or relative

Transitive and intransitive phrasal verbs

Some phrasal verbs are intransitive, meaning they don’t have an object. In this case you can use them like any other verb. For example,

Our car broke down three times last month.

Other phrasal verbs have objects, meaning they are transitive.

When a phrasal verb is transitive we can usually put the noun between the main verb and the adverb/preposition. For example, I can say:

Put on your shoes. OR Put your shoes on.

The meaning does not change. When I need to use a pronoun instead of a noun, I have to put the pronoun in the middle. For example,

Put them on. (Not Put on them.)

Here are some other examples:

Here’s the form. You need to fill it in.

The clients can’t come to the meeting so we’d better call it off.

Give me your coat and I’ll hang it up.