Phrasal Verbs 18

Phrasal Verbs

🔗Phrasal Verbs

1️⃣What are Phrasal Verbs?

📝A phrasal verb is a verb + one or two small words (called particles) such as a preposition or an adverb.

👉Verb + Particle(s) = New Meaning

💡turn on = to start a machine (Turn on the light.)
👶look after = to take care of (She looks after her little brother.)
🚭give up = to quit (He gave up smoking.)

⚠️Important: The meaning of a phrasal verb is often different from the meaning of the verb alone.

2️⃣Types of Phrasal Verbs

a) Transitive (need an object)

📺turn on the TV / turn the TV on
👶look after the baby (cannot be separated)

b) Intransitive (no object)

✈️The plane took off.
😴We woke up late.

c) Separable vs. Inseparable

🔀Separable → the object can go in the middle: She turned off the radio. = She turned the radio off.
🔒Inseparable → the object must go after the phrasal verb: She is looking after her sister. (❌ looking her sister after)

3️⃣Common Phrasal Verb Groups

🏠Daily life: get up, go out, wake up, sit down
📚School / work: hand in, give up, look up, carry on
✈️Travel: check in, take off, get on, get off
💕Relationships: get along (with), break up (with), look after
🧩Problem solving: find out, work out, sort out, give up

4️⃣Why are They Hard for Brazilians?

🇧🇷In Portuguese, we don't usually use a verb + preposition to change the meaning so strongly.

👉"look" = olhar, but "look after" = cuidar de (a totally different meaning).

That's why memorizing phrasal verbs as whole expressions is important.

5️⃣Common Mistakes ❌✅

❌I looked the word up in the dictionary. (wrong word order for separable)
✅I looked up the word. OR I looked the word up.
❌She takes care her brother.
✅She looks after her brother.
❌I turned off it.
✅I turned it off.

✨Quick Tips

📚Learn phrasal verbs in context (not alone).
🔍Check if the phrasal verb is separable or inseparable.
🚫Don't try to translate word by word into Portuguese — the meaning is usually idiomatic.