What are Phrasal Verbs?

What are Phrasal Verbs? From a grammatical point of view, they are a verb plus a preposition, an adverb or both. From a more practical and realistic point of view, they are one of the hardest things for learners to assimilate. Hopefully we can help!!

What are Phrasal Verbs?

As an English student, phrasal verbs are probably one of your least favourite things

about English! These random verb combinations that you have to memorize! It’s

torture!!

You’re right!!! Phrasal verbs are definitely one of the most difficult things to learn in

English as they are just so random and have to be learnt through study and

memorization.

But grammatically, what is a phrasal verb?

A Phrasal Verb is a combination of a normal verb and a particle or particles (adverbs or prepositions) whose meaning is usually different from the meaning of the verb on its own.

In some cases, there is a literal meaning or an idiomatic meaning. For example:

Look up! There’s a bird in the sky! (literal)

Look up any words you don’t understand in the dictionary. (phrasal verb)

There is also another important thing to consider when learning phrasal verbs and that’s

whether the verb takes an object (transitive) or doesn’t require an object (intransitive).

Hang up = colgar = require an object = transitive

Hang up your jacket, don’t leave it on the chair! (your jacket is the object)

Get by = apañarse sin mucho dinero = doesn’t require an object = intransitive

I don’t earn a large salary, but I get by.