English
English phrasal verbs: get up, look after, give up
English loves a verb plus a little word: up, out, after, on. Together they often mean something you would never guess from the parts, which is why give up has nothing to do with giving. The way through is to learn each one as a whole unit rather than sound it out from its pieces.
Two words, one new meaning
A phrasal verb is a verb plus a particle (up, out, on, after) that together mean something new, often nothing like the literal words.
give upto quit (nothing to do with giving)
look afterto take care of
run intoto meet by chance
One verb, many meanings
Swap the particle and the meaning changes completely, so treat each combination as its own word.
take offa plane leaves the ground, or you remove clothes
take upto start a hobby
take afterto resemble a relative
Separable or not
Separablethe object can split them
- turn the light off
- turn it off (not turn off it)
- a pronoun goes in the middle
Inseparablethey stay together
- look after the kids
- look after them
- the object always follows
Learn the whole unit
Do not reason a phrasal verb from its parts. Learn it like any vocabulary item, inside a short example that shows how it is used.
Phrasal verbs are vocabulary with a verb attached, so they respond to the same spaced repetition as any word. Verboteca teaches high-frequency verbs and the vocabulary around them, which is exactly where these combinations live.