Phrasal Verbs

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Phrasal verbs are part of a large group of verbs called \"multi-word verbs\". Phrasal verbs and other multi-word verbs are an important part of the English language. Multi-word verbs, including phrasal verbs, are very common, especially in spoken English. A multi-word verb is a verb like \"pick up\", \"turn on\" or \"get on with\". For convenience, many people refer to all multi-word verbs as phrasal verbs. These verbs consist of a basic verb + another word or words. The other word(s) can be prepositions and/or adverbs. The two or three words that make up multi-word verbs form a short \"phrase\"—which is why these verbs are often all called \"phrasal verbs\".

The important thing to remember is that a multi-word verb is still a verb. \"Get\" is a verb. \"Get up\", is also a verb, a different verb. \"Get\" and \"get up\" are two different verbs. They do not have the same meaning. So you should treat each multi-word verb as a separate verb, and learn it like any other verb. Look at these examples. You can see that there are three types of multi-word verb:

single-word verb		look	direct your eyes in a certain direction	You must look before you leap.
multi-word verbs	look after	take care of	prepositional verbs	Who is looking after the baby?
	look up	search for and find information in a reference book	phrasal verbs	You can look up my number in the telephone directory.
	look forward to	anticipate with pleasure	phrasal-prepositional verbs	I look forward to meeting you.

In this lesson we look at the three types of multi-word verbs, including phrasal verbs, followed by a quiz to check your understanding:

Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are a group of multi-word verbs made from a verb plus another word or words. Many people refer to all multi-word verbs as phrasal verbs. On these pages we make a distinction between three types of multi-word verbs: prepositional verbs, phrasal verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs. On this page we look at phrasal verbs proper.

Phrasal verbs are made of:

verb + adverb

Phrasal verbs can be:

intransitive (no direct object)
[/li]transitive (direct object)
[/li]

Here are some examples of phrasal verbs:

	phrasal verbs	meaning	examples
				direct object
intransitive phrasal verbs	get up	rise from bed	I don't like to get up.
	break down	cease to function	He was late because his car broke down.
transitive phrasal verbs	put off	postpone	We will have to put off	the meeting.
	turn down	refuse	They turned down	my offer.

Separable Phrasal Verbs
When phrasal verbs are transitive (that is, they have a direct object), we can usually separate the two parts. For example, \"turn down\" is a separable phrasal verb. We can say: \"turn down my offer\" or \"turn my offer down\". Look at this table:

transitive phrasal verbs are separable		They	turned		down	my offer.
		They	turned	my offer	down.

However, if the direct object is a pronoun, we have no choice. We must separate the phrasal verb and insert the pronoun between the two parts. Look at this example with the separable phrasal verb \"switch on\":

direct object pronouns must go between the two parts of transitive phrasal verbs		John	switched		on	the radio.	These are all possible.
		John	switched	the radio	on.
		John	switched	it	on.
		John	switched		on	it.	This is not possible.