3 Phrasal Verbs With Multiple Meanings With Espresso English

hi i’m vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm today i have a special

guest for you she’s shana from the super

popular youtube channel and website

espresso english she’s here today to

help you learn three phrasal verbs with

multiple meanings we’re gonna do this

through conversations so you’ll be able

to learn them naturally and enjoy

yourself let’s get started hi Sheena

thanks so much for joining me today

hey Vanessa I’m glad to be here yes yes

I’m so glad to have a special guest

who’s also an English teacher and a lot

of people watching this might already

know you but can you introduce yourself

a little bit to them yeah okay my name

is Shaina I am from the US I am I used

to live in Brazil where I taught English

and now I teach exclusively online at my

website espresso English dotnet

wonderful and how long have you been

doing that about almost five years now

Wow so the online world is expanding

you’ve been doing that for quite a few

years now that’s awesome definitely I’ve

got students all over the world so it’s

really fun yes and today we’re here to

talk about a huge topic that a lot of

English learners love and hate and

really need because it’s part of daily

conversation and that’s phrasal verbs so

thanks so much for helping to teach

about that and explain about it today

absolutely a lot of native English

speakers don’t even think about phrasal

verbs or even know what they are but on

English learners when they come to the

u.s. or Canada or Australia or England

encounter these phrasal verbs a ton

right in daily life so I’ve got three of

them here that actually have multiple

meanings so maybe we can chat about

those yes so maybe English learners know

some basic ones that have one meaning

that they might not know another meaning

so it’s time to learn them

and maybe a different way I think you’ve

got a really cool method for that yeah

so the first one let’s start with maybe

one that’s a little bit easier so the

first one um is work out and I thought

it - two different definitions for work

out can you think of what they are

Vanessa so well the first one I thought

of was just exercising like working out

and lifting weights I get it get fit

exactly and I think actually a lot of

English speakers will say I’m gonna go

work out instead of exercise you know

usually use exercise so much but we say

I’m gonna go work out I like to work out

in the morning before going to work that

was a great workout yesterday now I’m

feeling really tired and sore so yeah

definitely work out for exercise and

what about um another meaning for

workout can you think of anything else I

think if I were to use it in another way

maybe you could use it to talk about

like resolving a conflict maybe we need

to work out this problem or we’ve got

some tension in our relationship I hope

we can work it out

exactly exactly you’ll hear people say

like oh it was a little bit difficult

but in the end everything worked out it

resolved itself so yeah it’s a totally

different meaning right from exercise

but it’s also pretty common and so

you’ll hear people say yeah we need to

work out our differences or we need to

work out some of these problems or

everything worked out and that means

it’s a good thing ended nicely resolved

in a good way yeah and that could be a

huge misunderstanding if English

learners only know the first definition

and then you said something about your

boyfriend oh we we worked it out

yesterday they might think you exercise

but really you’re talking about your

relationship

exactly exactly a good point good point

so yeah two definitions for workout um

so that’s kind of a maybe a little bit

of an easier one the next two I have

actually have like four or five

definitions so this should be really

interesting so okay okay ready yeah

okay so the next one is back up what

comes to mind when I say back up just

the first thing back up well the first

thing that came to mind was a computer

because I’m looking at my computer right

now like I need to back up my videos or

we need to back up pictures or something

on your hard drive exactly to make a

digital copy like an extra copy just in

case your computer breaks or you lose it

and then you have your backup so you can

have a copy of all your files and I do

that all the time so I don’t know if you

do - I should probably do it more I’ve

got an older computer over here that I

need to backup everything on that

computer because who knows what’s gonna

happen to it but yeah that’s a really

valuable thing to do - so another one

for backup is when you’re driving a car

and you put the car in reverse and you

go backwards we also call that backing

up the car right so you need to be very

careful check your mirrors when you’re

backing up some new drivers might hit

something accidentally behind the car

when backing up so that meaning of

backup means the movement actually

moving backwards usually with the car

yeah it’s a little more straightforward

you’re backing up the car it’s literally

going back yep now what does it mean if

your toilet is backed up oh that’s

another great definition yeah I guess

that would mean that it’s stopped

there’s so much in something that it it

can’t flow freely yeah it’s like it’s

blocked like too much or something

accumulated and now the process can’t

happen I know a lot of times when you go

do something in bureaucracy and they say

oh we’re receiving a lot of applications

and we’re really backed up like there’s

just too much coming in and we can’t

process these applications so that’s

another meaning of backup which means to

stop moving right so you can oh you can

also say like a road like a highway is

backed up from is a marina traffic

oh it’s really backed up I’m gonna be

late yeah definitely um so yeah backed

up meaning like to be blocked and

there’s there’s one more I thought of

this one has to do with um think about

like like maybe an argument or a debate

can you think of what backup might mean

to back someone like to support

something if we say you have an argument

and you say some a crazy statement

someone else might say do you have any

facts to back that up or can you back

that up do you have any evidence exactly

think about that but we totally use that

all the time yes yeah so to sum it up I

guess would be to like for someone to

support someone’s position right in an

argument or debate so that’s four

different meanings for the phrasal verb

back up and you can see it they’re all

totally different yeah backing up your

computer a car your arguments the toilet

well that’s right and that’s the kind of

thing that it’s helpful to be aware of

those so that if you hear someone say

I’m backed up though you probably will

have no idea if you only know one of

those definitions but if you realize

that they’re sitting in traffic and

they’re on their way to meet you you

know exactly what they’re talking about

right earth or if I’m your friends are

having an argument one of them turns to

you and say hey can you back me up here

you know can you give me some support

yeah that’s another pretty common phrase

yeah I think that’s something that

especially if people are watching movies

or TV shows you’re going to hear that

all the time and it’s valuable to know

those in context you know you know where

are those situations cool thanks for

sharing those four movies that’s awesome

do we have time for one more this one

has five five let’s go for it yeah okay

so this one is take off hey okay so

first thing first thing a lot of English

learners probably already know this is

on to take off like a jacket to remove

something take off your shoes when you

come into the house take off a hat so

that one’s the straightforward right you

take something

oh really how about at an airport what

happens at an airport huh so if your

plane is taking off that means you’re

leaving you’re going to your destination

you’re going up it’s taking off that’s

kind of some people like that but some

people really hate it when the plane is

taking off right right air pressure but

and that’s a great ones no you’re not

taking off the plane you’re absolutely

going going up exactly when the airplane

goes up into the air and a kind of

related one to that is a lot of us say

when kind of informally um when we need

to leave a place we say I’m really sorry

I have to take off and that doesn’t mean

we’re gonna fly it means we have to

leave right I need to take off I have to

pick up my kids from school or oh it’s

getting late we should probably take off

so that’s kind of like a slang a little

bit of an informal way to use take off

yeah I feel like that’s a really

comfortable expression that you’d use

with people you know or people you’re

really friendly with because it’s I

think you said slang it feels really

nice to say oh I guess got it I gotta

take off see you later

right right right and you can also take

time off from work so we use this when

saying like oh I took a week off in July

and I took my kids to Disneyland or

something like that so instead of saying

taking vacation you can also say that

right you can say take three days off or

take take the afternoon off so imagine

if someone only knew the first

definition of taking off something and

you said I’m gonna take off three days

they would be so confused what does it

mean to take off three days the last one

that I could think of is when a product

or a song or something gets popular

really fast we say it took off like

those like those skateboards that go

forward by themselves what are they

hoverboards they kind of took off laughs

yeah everybody was buying them yeah so

they got popular we say the product took

off or this trend took off a lot of

people started

and start getting really popular so

totally different meaning right yeah I

can kind of imagine some similarity with

a plane taking off if you think about

right rising but hit those are all

completely different meanings for

takeoff especially from the first one

that most English learners are going to

be familiar with taking off something

all right

took off that’s a great one and so a lot

of phrasal verbs are like this right you

can’t really discover what they mean

just from the words themselves you kind

of have to know these different

different meanings sure so do you have

any recommendations for how English

learners especially for just this video

as they listen to this video how can

they use this conversation and these

ideas because we gave a lot of examples

about how to use them how can they

remember those that’s a huge challenge

to remember them yeah well the first one

I would encourage everyone to after this

videos over try to make your own example

sentence with each of the phrasal verbs

and each of the meanings so you can say

oh the last time I traveled my plane

took off at 11 o’clock at night and just

personalized it right make it something

that is related to your life or it’s

true for you and write it down right

because writing it is more active than

just kind of thinking about it and

that’s a good way just to kind of fix

them in your memory yeah using your own

life is going to be the most memorable

thing for you because you know that

really well the making examples from

your life writing it down I would say

even to reading your sentences out loud

is another layer to that writing it

reading it going over it that’s gonna be

really valuable repetition right going

over it that’s another phrasal verb to

go over and meaning to review something

so you can say these things just come

out naturally right sure definitely come

out naturally eating all the time

in a way it’s something that English

learners might feel overwhelmed with

phrasal verbs but when you attack

learning phrasal verbs in this way

through conversation or through context

it’s much more reasonable because that’s

how we use them so I wanted to ask you

at the end of this conversation about

your method for learning phrasal verbs I

know you’ve got an awesome course about

learning phrasal verbs through this

style so English learners don’t become

overwhelmed and frustrated and they can

actually use them can you tell us a

little bit about that yeah so the course

is just call up phrasal verbs in

conversation because I mean when we

native English speakers learn phrasal

verbs we learn them in context right we

don’t study lists we don’t try to

memorize them we just learnt them kind

of naturally like if my mom says to me

every morning

Shana time to get up then I know that

get up means to get out of my bed and so

I try to create this experience for

English learners by creating short

conversations that are full of phrasal

verbs and then so people can see them in

context and then I kind of explain each

one and give a few more examples and

then each lesson finishes with some some

quizzes just to review and also some

questions that are like you know when

was the last time you back up your

computer and you can use the phrasal

verb in your own sentence so that’s

that’s kind of it in a nutshell yeah

that sounds awesome to be able to hear

them in in a natural context because a

lot of English learners don’t live in an

english-speaking country or even if they

do they don’t live with an English

speaker so they’re not going to hear

that on a daily basis so you’re giving

them that experience wherever they live

yeah that’s the idea

yeah well thanks so much for sharing

that I’m gonna share the links to your

course different phrasal verb materials

below this video or with this video so

that anyone watching it can learn more

because you’ve got a lot of great

materials awesome Thank You Vanessa oh

my pleasure thanks so much for this

short little video we could talk about

phrasal verbs I hope English learners

learned a lot and got to meet or we meet

someone new cool well thanks so much see

you the next time alright take care I

thanks so much for watching this

interview with Shayna from espresso

English like she said I recommend

writing your own sentences with all of

these phrasal verbs you can do it in the

comments below in your notebook you can

do it with a speaking partner a friend a

teacher just use them and to learn more

with Shana click on the links here on

the screen or in the description below

the video thanks so much and I’ll see

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