PRACTICE YOUR ENGLISH

You can radically improve your English fluency in a short time if you learn the most commonly used English phrasal verbs and start using them in your English conversations. And of course, the same applies on written communication! If you’re able to use phrasal verbs in your e-mails, for example, they’ll be much easier to read and understand!

So without a further ado, let’s get down to the business!

Bring up – means to mention something. You can tell your colleague, for example: “They didn’t bring up any of our suggestions in the meeting”.

Carry on – this phrasal verb is very similar to “go on”. Just like “go on” it means “to continue” but it’s usually used in phrases like “Let’s carry on” or “You can carry on without me”.

Chase up – a very handy way of saying “to find, to seek out”. For instance, you’ve been assigned a particular task, but some necessary files are missing. You can say “I’ll chase up those files” meaning you’ll go and see where those files are. You can also chase up a person – “I’ll chase up Frank because I need his help with homework and no-one else has an idea how to do it!”

Come across – to find something by chance or to encounter something unexpectedly. If you found an interesting article online and you’re telling your friend about it, you can say: “You know, I came across this article online where they’ve done research on…”

Come up with – this is a very useful phrasal verb if you usually find it hard to describe the fact when someone has told you about a new plan or a good idea. You might be struggling with phrases like – “He created a good plan” or “She produced a brand new solution” or even – “I devised a new idea on how to…” Native English speakers would simply say “She came up with a brand new solution” so you can start using this phrasal verb!

Fall apart – describes when something falls into pieces. Let’s say you’re wrapping an awkward package and you’re struggling with it. You can say “The whole thing just keeps falling apart, I can’t wrap it; can you help me?” This is another phrasal verb foreigners don’t normally use and if you start using it on similar occasions you’ll find it much easier to describe the situation!

Get along – means to have a good relationship with someone. You can say “Do you get along with Mary from the accounting?” if you want to ask that person if he/she is in good terms with Mary. Another sample sentence - “I don’t get along with Mark, I didn’t like him from the very first day I met him!”

Get away with – means to avoid being punished for not having done something or for breaching rules. A typical phrase you can start using right away is “Did you think you can get away with this?” if you’ve caught someone having done something you’re very unhappy about.

Get over – if you can’t accept something that’s happened in your life and you can’t stop thinking about it, you can say - “It’s very hard for me to get over it.” And if you want to lift someone’s spirits and say that it’s not such a big deal after all, you can say: “Common, get over it, it’s not as bad as it looks!”

Give up – use this phrasal verb when speaking about resolution you’ve stopped pursuing or expectations that are most likely to remain unfulfilled. “I gave up my New Year’s diet; I just couldn’t stick to it.” “I’ve given up hope of getting a better job.”

Go on! – This is a typical way of telling someone to begin a particular action or resume doing something. If you can’t wait on someone to start telling an interesting story, you’d exclaim in excitement – “Go on, go on!” You can also use “go on” if you, for instance, are writing down figures your co-worker is calling out for you. Every time you’re ready to put the next figure down you can use the phrasal verb “go on” to let your partner know that he can call out the next figure.

Hold on! – Literally “hold on” means to hold on to something. Most common use of this phrasal verb, however, is when you want to tell someone to stop doing something or to wait until you’re ready to proceed with the initial action. Foreigners usually use “Stop!” and “Wait!” instead; “hold on” is more natural in spoken English.

Look after – means “to take care of” and is used a lot in communications between supervisors and employees at work. Typically your boss would ask you “Can you look after this order for me?” So if you want to sound more natural and friendly, don’t say things like “I’m responsible for this customer”. “I’m looking after this customer” is the best way of putting it.

Look up – to find something in a phone book, on the Internet or any other reference media. This is a very handy phrasal verb to use in sentences like “Can you look up their address on the Net?”

Make out – to recognize, to distinguish details of something. “I just couldn’t make out what she was saying!” – you can say a phrase like this if the person in question spoke too fast, or with a distinct accent, or too quiet. Another sample sentence – “I can’t make out these details; can you help me with this, please?”

Pull over – if you drive a car, you can use this phrasal verb to describe an action of driving to the side of the road in order to stop. Typical application of this phrasal verb – “Can you pull over at the next petrol station?” Foreigners would most likely say “to stop at…” so if you start using “pull over” you’ll sound more natural when speaking English!

Put down – simply means “to write down.” “Hold on, I’ll put it down, let me just find a piece of paper!”

Put off – this is an informal way of saying “to postpone”, “to do later”. “I don’t want to clean my house today, I’ll put it off till tomorrow” would be a perfect example of this phrasal verb in use.

Turn up – means to arrive. You can inquire about your friend by asking “Has Michael turned up today?” if you haven’t seen him and you’re wondering if he’s come to work or school today at all.

Watch out! – you can use this phrasal verb if something endangers someone else’s safety and you want to bring that person’s attention to that object or activity. Foreigners usually use unarticulated sounds instead – like “Ahh!” or “Ohh!” simply because on occasions when a super-fast reaction is needed they can’t think of a fitting word or phrase to say.

Guest post from English learning enthusiast Robby Kukurs. Robby writes about improving spoken English on his blog EnglishHarmony.com. He also regularly posts videos about improving English fluency on his YouTube channel.

Some time ago, we discussed 3 powerful tips to learn English phrasal verbs. Today, we’re presenting 3 more tips that will help you mastering English phrasal verbs. Trust me, after putting into practice all these 6 tips, you’ll notice the improvement in your level of English! Following three tips are numbered from 4 to 6 as they should be used in combination with previous 3 tips already discussed.

Tip #4. Don’t translate phrasal verbs into your language when writing them into your pocket dictionary! Use other English words to explain them!

If you learn new phrasal verbs through your native language, you won’t get out of the translation mode when speaking English. It’s when you build a sentence in your native language in your head first, and then translate it into English. This advice is actually relevant when learning any new English words, so once you’ve acquired the basic English vocabulary, you’d better stop using your native language as reference.

You can always explain a new phrasal verb using very simple, basic English words and that way you’ll facilitate thinking in English which is crucial for your English fluency.

For example, a phrasal verb you’re learning is ‘to keep up’. Write it into your dictionary as part of a phrase ‘keep up with me’ and explain it using simple English – ‘to stay at the same level as me when walking or doing something.’

Tip #5. To choose which phrasal verbs to learn, you can simply start with a list of most commonly used ones. You can also look out for phrasal verbs in textbooks or other English texts you read and you’ll also definitely hear them in English songs, films and of course – newspapers. If you come across the same phrasal verb a number of times, it’s a pretty good indicator that it’s often used and therefore worth memorizing.

Also – when choosing in what context to learn a particular phrasal verb, go for a phrase you’ve heard in real life or read in newspaper. So for instance, if you hear someone saying: “Look who’s decided to turn up!”, you can learn the phrasal verb ‘to turn up’ in exactly this context because this phrase is usually used as a friendly joke when someone arrives later than expected.

Tip #6. Don’t start learning all phrasal verbs that are formed using a particular verb at once!

You’ll realize that every simple English verb can form plenty of phrasal verbs like ‘to get ahead’, ‘to get along’, ‘to get at’, ‘to get by’, ‘and to get down to’. If you try to learn them all one after another, you’ll definitely start mixing them up!

Although it may seem as a pretty good idea to learn all related phrasal verbs together, in reality it doesn’t work.

Instead go for phrasal verb selection based on what you hear in real life. And if you choose them from a list, pick random ones that aren’t grouped together by the main verb!

If you follow these tips and learn at least a couple of dozen of the most commonly used English phrasal verbs, you’ll definitely notice a significant increase of your spoken English fluency. That in turn will provide you with additional motivation to add even more of these multi-word verbs to your active English vocabulary!

Guest post from English learning enthusiast Robby Kukurs. Robby writes about improving spoken English on his blog EnglishHarmony.com. He also regularly posts videos about improving English fluency on his YouTube channel.

Quite often foreign English speakers have tendency of creating complicated, unnatural English sentences when speaking. While it’s acceptable and even necessary (to develop English writing skills and learn to express yourself) when writing, in spoken English it can lead to situations when English learners struggle to explain themselves and hesitate when speaking. That’s when phrasal verbs come into action and facilitate spoken English fluency and therefore they’re really beneficial in order to increase foreign English speakers’ confidence!

But if you’re having and impression that phrasal verbs are used only as slang phrases and educated, intelligent people don’t use them – you’d better think twice! While there’s indeed a great number of very informal phrasal verbs like ‘to stick up for’ which means ‘to defend someone when they’re being criticized’ or ‘fire away!’ meaning ‘start speaking!’, it’s very handy being able to use them as well. If you’re on a night out with English speaking folks, you’ll be able to communicate with ease as informal chat mostly consists of such phrasal verbs.

Have I finally managed to persuade you to start leaning English phrasal verbs? Then let’s get down to the business!

Tip #1. While there are plenty of English textbooks dedicated to phrasal verbs, there’s no real need to get a hold of one. You don’t need to stuff your brain with hundreds of phrasal verbs at once because you’ll simply start mixing them up! Of course, it never hurts to have one for reference, but I’d suggest you go for freely available online resources.

While there are many English learning websites where you can find lists of phrasal verbs, you need to find one where the phrasal verbs come with example sentences. You need to see in what context a phrasal verb is used to get it right!

Here’s a great website with thousands of phrasal verbs with examples. You can use it when picking new phrasal verbs to learn and also to look up meanings of new phrasal verbs you come across when learning English.

Tip #2. When choosing which phrasal verbs to learn, go for the most commonly used first! Here’s a list of the essential English phrasal verbs, and even if you learn only half of them, your spoken English will definitely become more fluent!

Learning English is often not so much about quantity as quality. You see – any person has active and passive vocabularies. Your active English vocabulary contains all the English words you can actually use when speaking, but passive is all the English words you recognize but can’t really use when speaking. So while it’s definitely useful to recognize meanings of plenty of phrasal verbs, you can add only a limited number of phrasal verbs to your active vocabulary in a given period of time.

That’s why it’s crucial to pick out the most commonly used ones and start using them when speaking English!

Tip #3. Pick a few phrasal verbs – one to three every day – and write them in your pocket dictionary. Memorize them by repeating a good number of times until the phrasal verb settles in your mind.

IMPORTANT! Always learn phrasal verbs within context! Don’t memorize a single phrasal verb, instead repeat and memorize a phrase that contains it!

So instead of memorizing only ‘to pass around’ learn the whole phrase ‘to pass test papers around’. By memorizing phrasal verbs this way you’ll make sure you can use them in real English conversations later on. If, on the other hand, you memorize only the exact phrasal verbs, you might struggle using them when speaking. You’ll be forced to constantly kind of look them up from your inner dictionary and it will hamper your English fluency. But if you have them imprinted in your mind as part of natural English phraseology, you’ll be able to use them automatically.

Of course, it’s important that you pick relevant phrases. Don’t learn a phrasal verb phrase ‘to get away with stealing a million’. Are you really going to talk about stealing a million on a regular basis? Use your judgment and learn a phrase that is meaningful and would be used regularly, like ‘to get away with being late’. Just think of similar situations in your daily life and pick expressions that you would use!

Guest post from English learning enthusiast Robby Kukurs. Robby writes about improving spoken English on his blog EnglishHarmony.com. He also regularly posts videos about improving English fluency on his YouTube channel.

English phrasal verbs consist of a simple verb combined with a short word called particle – such as ‘on’, ‘up’, ‘down’ and similar. Typical examples of English phrasal verbs are ‘to put down’, ‘to find out’, and ‘to come back’ and as you can see the meanings of these simple phrasal verbs are self-explanatory. Obviously ‘to put down’ something indeed means that you have to put the respective object down, and you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that ‘to come back’ means exactly what it is – ‘to come back’!

Not on all occasions, though, a phrasal verb has a direct meaning. Let’s look at a phrasal verb ‘to look forward to’. If we take this phrase literally, it would mean ‘to look straight ahead’. However, in this case you have to think of yourself looking ahead into the future awaiting on an important event. OK, I have to admit that it is actually possible to guess its meaning. Even if you didn’t know the meaning of ‘to look forward to’ before, you’d still probably understand if someone told you: “All right, I have to go now. I’ll be really looking forward on meeting you again!”

But what if I told you: “I think we’ll have to put it off”? Would you still guess that the phrasal verb ‘to put off’ means ‘to postpone’? I think you have to agree that it’s not that easy, and here we’ve arrived at the vast amount of different English phrasal verbs that you have to learn before you can understand their meanings and start using them in your daily conversations. ‘To get by’, ‘to get along’, ‘to call off’, ‘to run out’ – all these seemingly simple yet so distinct phrasal verbs have meanings you’d never think of yourself!

‘I’m making enough money to get by’ means that I have just enough money to afford the basic things.

If I’m asking you: “How are you getting along with your new co-workers?” I want to find out if there’s a friendly atmosphere among you and your new colleagues.

And if you just used up the last sheet in the printer, you can tell your team-leader: “I just ran out of paper, can I get some please?”

So as you can see, you need to know meanings of these exact phrasal verbs to understand them even within context and also to be able to use them! Taking into account that there are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English language used in every possible life situation, you simply can’t ignore them!

You’re probably thinking – “Phrasal verbs? All right, it sounds useful, but is it really that necessary? If I haven’t paid much attention to them by now, surely I can do without them in the future!” Well, I have to tell you that you’re not entirely right in saying that. Of course, you can do without them, but you’ll miss out on so many benefits that the phrasal verbs can give you that it just wouldn’t be wise. And by the way – did you notice that I used two phrasal verbs in the previous sentence – ‘to do without’ and ‘to miss out’?

So here’s why phrasal verbs are actually crucial for any English learner!

First of all, you have to become aware of the fact that spoken English is literally packed with phrasal verbs. And as you definitely want to learn efficient English communication, it’s important that you learn to speak fluently and easily. So while there’s nothing wrong with using formal words like ‘to extinguish’ and ‘to dismantle’, using their phrasal verb versions ‘to put out’ and ‘to take apart’ is so much easier in a conversation!

Traditionally English is studied using textbooks that are written using quite formal language, and that can be one of the reasons why foreigners struggle with effective English communication. You see – English language you’ve used to read and write doesn’t always follow the same patterns as spoken English. I’m not saying that normal English grammar doesn’t apply when speaking. Nonetheless, phrasal verbs definitely change the language and make it more friendly, easy-to-understand and easy-flowing.

To clearly see my point, let’s compare two sentences – one in formal, written English and the other – spoken English.

Let’s say, this is what it says on your work contract: ‘Company’s employees are required to inform the management about taking the annual leave at least sixty days in advance.’ And this is what your new manager tells you on the induction day: “You have to hand in a holiday request at least sixty days in advance.” Do you see how a formal request is being paraphrased in conversational English using the phrasal verb ‘to hand in’? And mind this – it’s not only about informal conversations!

Phrasal verbs are being used all across the board starting from chatting with your friends during a lunch break and ending with company meetings! Imagine yourself asking your boss: “Would you like me to break down the first quarter’s sales figures as well?” The same question can be asked this way: “Would you like me to calculate regional sales figures for the first quarter as well?”

Now pronounce those two sentences. Don’t you agree the first one is easier to pronounce and it kind of ‘flows’ out of you mouth easier? It’s all because the phrasal verb ‘to break down’ consists of simple English words and eliminates the need to use a whole string of words ‘to calculate regional sales figures’!

And if this still hasn’t convinced you that phrasal verbs are a must-have for any English learner, here’s the second aspect.

As you saw in the example with the phrasal verb ‘to break down’, you can easily substitute a string of long words with a single phrasal verb. That makes the English conversation natural and fluent, and you have to agree that spoken English fluency is one of your English language study’s main goals!

Until now you’ve probably held the opinion that the bigger your English vocabulary becomes, the more fluent you’re automatically going to become. Most likely you’ve just focused on working with textbooks and using other techniques to memorize as much English as possible. While technically it is true and you can’t speak English without vocabulary, you also need to be selective as to what vocabulary you use in your spoken English.

What I’m trying to say is that on many occasions it will be much easier for you to speak English if you go for more natural, friendly means of expression, and phrasal verbs provide you with exactly that!

And by the way – phrasal verbs make your English speech sound more like that of a native English speaker. While there’s nothing wrong being a foreigner and you should never be ashamed of your origins, speaking in a native manner definitely makes your speech more understandable and it’s only a bonus.

So if you learn at least the most commonly used English phrasal verbs, you’ll definitely increase your overall English fluency and understanding. If you can say a sentence like: “You can end up being broke if you carry on gambling” you’re going to sound more native and easy-going than if you said: “You risk eventually becoming broke if you continue gambling”.

And here’s another great benefit to using and knowing English phrasal words. You can start speaking fluent English much sooner if you learn phrasal verbs as they consist of simple verbs that you’re already familiar with. Majority of English phrasal verbs are formed using basic verbs like ‘to get’, ‘to take’, ‘to make’, ‘to look’, ‘to bring’, ‘to give’ and similar. So instead of learning and memorizing plenty of new formal English words you can use your existing basic English vocabulary wisely and form dozens upon dozens phrasal verbs. This way you can start speaking fluently much faster and work on building up your formal English vocabulary afterwards!

Guest post from English learning enthusiast Robby Kukurs. Robby writes about improving spoken English on his blog EnglishHarmony.com. He also regularly posts videos about improving English fluency on his YouTube channel.

In the blog we want to help everyone who may be learning English, whatever their level. That's why, after writing some guides for learning English from scratch, we present a guide for those people who have an intermediate level of English.

Do you have an intermediate English level? How do your English reading skills influence your English?

Are you able to understand the main idea when English is spoken clearly and when normal or daily issues are discussed? Do you understand texts written in English about daily issues or related to your job? Do you know how to get by in almost any situation when you travel to an English speaking country?

If you answered yes, then congratulations! you probably have an intermediate level of English.

In this guide we’d like to help you progress in your learning and your command of the English language by reading texts in English to improve your English reading skills.

How to improve your level of English by reading texts in English

One of the best ways to make progress with your English is to read. When your English reading skills are strong, you will notice a difference in your English as a whole. Also, reading is an easy, fun and very affordable way to improve many aspects of your English. You can improve your vocabulary, comprehension and grammar all by picking up a book, or visiting a website.

Reading texts in English can help you in many aspects of your learning. When you read in English you learn new words and grammar structures. If you repeatedly see that new vocabulary you’ll learn it by heart and then you’ll be able to use it when writing or speaking in English.

It’s important to get into the habit of reading texts in English: books, newspapers, magazines or websites. If you read a minimum of 20 or 30 minutes every day, you’ll notice improvements in your vocabulary, oral expression and your English reading skills.

When you read a text in English, it’s a good idea not to look words up in the dictionary every time you don't understand a word. On the contrary, it’s better to try and guess the meaning of the new words “by its context”. When you use context rather than a dictionary to learn words, you will be able to remember the words more easily. (Not to mention it is very frustrating to refer to a dictionary every 5th word, so you might find that your confidence improves as well).

In order to help you enjoy reading in English, you can pick up a writer that you like a lot (I love Roald Dahl, author of Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many others), you can also focus on a topic that interests you: football, Internet, fashion, education, news … (as you can see the topics are countless) and look for magazines, books or Web pages that discuss those topics. If you are interested in improving your health, why not study different ways to improve it in English? If you want to visit Canada, why not explore your city of choice in English. Languages are much easier to learn when you use them in an interesting and relevant way for yourself.

Another thing that you can try is reading the same book, magazine, article or Web page more than once. If you read something and then you read it again in a couple of days or weeks, you’ll notice that the second or successive time that you read it you’ll understand more and you’ll be consolidating the new vocabulary and grammar.

If you are trying to do all of this on the web but your vocabulary is a little low, try using WordChamp to help you along. Its Web Reader makes reading online articles simple and quick and it allows you to study the vocabulary that you didn’t know before with automatically created flashcards. To look up the meaning of a word, you can also use any of the free Online Dictionaries already compiled in the blog.

Available resources in the blog and on the Internet

In the blog we have a collection of resources with interesting material to read in English. The resource topics that we have already mentioned are:

News

Euronews: contains the latest international news, the news is in different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic).

List of American online Newspapers: a total of 33 free online newspapers with interesting material.

Education

Lecturefox: free lectures in English from the top universities all over the world. Boost your English reading skills while learning something new.

On the Internet there are many Web pages and resources to read things you are interested in. You can use your favorite Internet browser to look for any of them. Diana recommends the Gutenberg project which has a large archive of free books (mostly the classics) that you can download or print.

This document has been written in collaboration with Diana Tower, an English teacher with 3 years teaching experience. She is also the author of the free Web page Helping you learn English.