Professional English Practice · Phrasal Verbs
1 · Verb plus particle: one idea
Noticing them, and why stand up and bring up are the same machine.
ACCESS
Welcome. Before any particle, one idea: a phrasal verb is a verb and a particle acting as a single unit, with a single meaning. You already use dozens. This scene is full of them. One, ping back, you may not have met. Guess it from the particle.
A morning standup. Count the phrasal verbs as they go by; they're everywhere in ordinary speech.
Mara Let's kick off. Sol, where did you get to yesterday?
Sol I set up the staging server and looked into the login bug.
Mara Did you figure it out?
Sol Mostly. I'll follow up with a fix and ping back when it's live.
Mara Great. Priya, anything holding you up?
Priya Just waiting on design. I'll chase it up after the standup.
ANALYSIS
ONE QUESTION RUNS THIS WHOLE UNIT
Is the particle still doing its own job?
In look into the room, into is a preposition telling you where you looked. In look into the delay, it has fused with the verb and the two words mean one thing: investigate. That fusion is what makes a phrasal verb, and it is the only thing you have to spot.
The structure
A phrasal verb is a verb plus a particle, a small word like up, out, off, or in, that together act as one unit with one meaning. Look and into are two words; look into is one idea: investigate. The particle isn't a preposition doing its own job here; it has fused with the verb.
The remarkable part is that the same machine runs from the most literal to the most figurative. Stand up can mean rise from your chair. Add to and it becomes resist: stand up to the boss. Bring up can mean carry something upstairs, or raise a topic. Verb plus particle, one machine, sliding from the concrete to the abstract.
A phrasal verb
- Form
- verb + particle, acting as one word
- Meaning
- the pair has one meaning that neither word has alone
- Use it to
- name the unit you are actually learning
A verb with a preposition
- Form
- verb + preposition, each doing its own job
- Meaning
- the preposition still tells you where or how
- Use it to
- recognize what is not a phrasal verb, so you stop looking
One machine, two distances
- Form
- the same pair, read literally or figuratively
- Meaning
- the machine is identical; only the object has changed
- Use it to
- see why one form covers both, and stop learning them twice
The same verb-plus-particle machine, from lifting a real box to facing down real power. Only the distance from the literal changes.
Ran up the hill, ran up a bill
The clearest proof that a phrasal verb is one word is a pair where nothing on the page changes except what follows.
He ran up the hill. Here up is a preposition doing its own job: it tells you the direction of the running, and you could swap it for down and change only the direction.
He ran up a huge bill. Here nobody ran anywhere. Run up is one unit meaning to accumulate, and you cannot swap the particle for another without destroying the meaning. Same two words, and only the second one is a phrasal verb.
The test you can run with no book
Ask: can you still answer 'where?'
If the small word tells you where or in what direction, it is a preposition doing its own job, and this is not a phrasal verb. If it tells you nothing about place, the two words have fused.
A second check that agrees with the first: try to replace the pair with one ordinary verb. Look into becomes investigate, run up becomes accumulate. Run up the hill becomes nothing.
The mechanical half: a phrasal verb survives having its object changed to something abstract; a preposition does not. You can run up a bill, a debt, or a tab. You cannot run up a decision.
Seeing the phrasal verb as one unit is the shift that unlocks the rest of the book. Read look into as one verb meaning investigate, and it's as simple as any other word.
ACTIVATION
Practice spotting the machine: find the phrasal verbs, tell them from prepositions, and read them as single verbs.
Find the phrasal verb
Write the phrasal verb from each sentence. Two sentences have none; write none.
Spot and fix the error
Each sentence is missing its particle or has the wrong one. Rewrite it correctly.
1. I'll look into the bug and get back to you.
2. Can you follow up with the client?
3. Let's kick off the standup.
4. She figured out the problem.
5. I'll ping back when it's live.
Rewrite with a phrasal verb
Replace the formal verb with a phrasal verb that means the same thing.
1. Let's kick off the standup.
2. I looked into the bug.
3. Did you figure it out?
4. I'll follow up with the client afterward.
5. What's holding you up?
Match the halves
Join each phrasal verb to its one-word meaning.
Meet a Stranger
These three are not taught anywhere in this book. Reason from the particle, then reveal the key. No grading here, this is reasoning practice.
1. “I'll hash out the details before the client call.”
2. “Let's chase down the last two approvals before the call.”
3. “Let's knuckle down and finish the sprint.”
hash out: to work through a problem by discussing it thoroughly. Out: fully worked through.
chase down: to pursue and finally obtain something. Down: pursued until caught.
knuckle down: to begin working hard and seriously. Down: settle low and focus.
Particle swap
Same verb, three particles, one right answer. Choose the particle the situation needs.
Vocabulary: the standup
Match each expression to its meaning.
Vocabulary in context
Complete each sentence with an expression from G.