Learn 10 Separable Phrasal Verbs

01Welcome back to Everyday Grammar from VOA Learning English.

02Today, we return to a very common verb form in English, phrasal verbs.

03You will find one phrasal verb in every 192 words of written English.

04They will make your English sound more natural once you begin using them correctly.

05In an earlier program, we explained how and why English speakers use them.

06Today, we look at some often used phrasal verbs.

07This type of phrasal verb allows a direct object to come between the verb and the preposition or adverb.

08As you will hear, there is a special rule that learners should know about when using these ten phrasal verbs.

09As you know, a phrasal verb is a phrase with two or more words, a verb and a preposition or adverb or both.

10We call the preposition or adverb a particle when it combines with a verb.

11Here are two examples.

12Please put the lamp on the desk.

13I think you're putting me on.

14In the first sentence, on is a preposition showing the position of the lamp.

15In the second sentence, on is an adverbial particle.

16Put on is a phrasal verb meaning fool or trick in this sentence.

17An important point is that a regular verb plus preposition combination has two meanings.

18A phrasal verb, that is, a verb plus particle, has a single meaning within a sentence.

19Many phrasal verbs have a number of different meanings in different situations.

20Yet, the meaning of the verb plus particle can usually be expressed with a single Latin-based verb.

21Here are two sentences with the same meaning.

22They tore down the old building.

23They demolished the old building.

24The verb tear has its own meaning, and so does the preposition down.

25They can combine with other words when they are alone.

26But as a phrasal verb, tear down, they have one meaning, destroy.

27In 1987, U.S.

28President Ronald Reagan visited West Germany.

29He told a crowd in the divided city of Berlin, Mr.

30Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

31Now for the tricky part.

32You know that some verbs are transitive, which means they have a direct object.

33When such verbs appear as phrasal verbs, an object can either separate the phrase or follow it.

34Here's an example.

35I decided to throw out my old jeans.

36I decided to throw my old jeans out.

37Both of these sentences are correct.

38The object of the phrasal verb throw out is jeans.

39You can use a pronoun instead of jeans and ask, Are you sure you want to throw them out?

40However, you cannot ask, Are you sure you want to throw out them?

41Here, the pronoun them must appear between the verb and the particle.

42In recent years, language experts began to use computers to examine a large collection, or corpus, of written and spoken language.

43When researchers look for phrasal verbs, they find that many deal with an activity.

44They also find a few verbs combined with many particles.

45Among the most common verbs are come, put, get, go, pick, sit, and take.

46These combine with the adverb particles up, out, in, on, off, and down to make up a group of very useful phrasal verbs.

47Now, let's look at transitive phrasal verbs.

48See the list at the end of the article.

49The verb get is part of many phrasal verbs.

50For example, we use get up to mean to wake oneself up, or to awaken someone.

51For example, My son loves to sleep late.

52I got him up on time to catch the bus this morning.

53Remember, the pronoun has to come between the verb and the adverb.

54So we cannot say, I got up him.

55Notice how the Norwegian group AHA uses a separable phrasal verb two ways in their song, Take on me.

56Which one is correct in formal grammar?

57I'll be coming for your love, okay?

58Take on me, take on me.

59Take me on, take on me.

60I'll be gone in a day or two.

61For Learning English, Everyday Grammar, I'm Jill Robbins.

62And I'm John Russell.