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Test your PHRASAL VERB skills! Can you get all 9 correct?

Hi. I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Do you know when to use phrasal verbs? Let’s talk about it. I have a secret to tell you. Before I became an English teacher, I had never heard the express “phrasal verb,” and I can bet you $50 that if you went on the street and you asked anyone in the US what’s a phrasal verb, I bet that they wouldn’t know.

I tell you this because sometimes when you try to focus on concepts and put them into little categories like phrasal verbs, flap T, past perfect, present perfect, it can feel really stressful and make you feel a little more stressed about English than you need to. Of course, it’s great to have tools in your metaphorical toolbox to know what those concepts are, but don’t let them stress you out.

When I was living in Paris, my French teacher was the most amazing teacher that I’ve ever had, and I always try to be like him. Let me give you an example about what he would do. Every English speaker has a fear of the subjunctive tense in French. For some reason, because we don’t really use it that often in English, it is just really stressful to learn this in French, so my teacher had a unique way to help us learn this without stress.

I really remember at the end of that lesson, I felt like, “Oh. It’s not that bad. Why did I think that the subjunctive tense was that bad?” This is what he did. He went around the room, and he asked each student a question. We knew that we needed to answer that question using the subjunctive tense.

He didn’t give us the rule you need to use it for, desire, will, or wanting, these types of things. He just said, “Your answer needs to be in the subjunctive tense. Here’s my question.” He asked me, “What do you need to do today?” I said, “[French 00:01:48],” blah, blah, blah. This is using the subjunctive tense in French. I didn’t know the exact rule behind this yet, but in real life, when someone asked me, “What do you need to do today?”

I knew I need to use the subjunctive because I already had this real-life situation where I used it in the classroom. I hope that today’s lesson will be similar. I hope that you’ll be able to use these phrasal verbs intuitively before I teach you a rule about it. What I’m going to do is I’m going to show you nine pairs of sentences, and I want you to guess should you use the phrasal verb or should you use the simple verb.

Let’s take a look at a quick example. Here we have two verbs, “try” and “try out.” “Try out” is the phrasal verb, and “try” is the simple verb. Here are two sentences. “I need to… the cake before I buy it,” “I need to… the program before I buy it.” The only difference here is the cake or the program. Which one is best with just “try,” the simple verb, “try,” and which one’s best with the phrasal verb, “try out”?

Think about it for a moment. Did you say, “I need to try the cake before I buy it,” and, “I need to try out the program before I buy it.” If you said this, you’re correct. Did you know we use “try out” to test some kind of program or experience? Maybe you didn’t know that specific rule, but “try out” just intuitively felt right with the word “program.” That’s what I want you to do.

I want you to look inside your heart and guess the best answer for these next pairs of sentences. Afterwards, I’ll tell you a quick rule about it, but hopefully, in the future, you’ll be able to use these naturally. All right, let’s go on to our first pair of sentences. Pair number one: brings or brings up.

“He always… his wife in conversation,” “He always… some wine to my house.” The main difference here is the end of the sentence, of course, so take a look at this and feel in your heart which one is the most correct for each of these sentences. Did you say, “He always brings up his wife in conversation,” “He always brings some wine to my house.” I hope so. That’s the correct answer.

We use the phrasal verb to “bring up” something to talk about entering a topic into a conversation. That means that this man often talks about his wife in conversation hopefully because he loves her so much, so he brings up his wife in conversation, or you could bring up politics in conversation.

You are bringing up a topic in a conversation. Of course, we use the word “bring” to physically give something to someone else. He brings a bottle of wine to my house. Pair number two: fill or fill out. “You should… your mind with facts,” “You should… the form with facts.” The only difference is your mind and the form. Think about this for a moment. I’ll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. “You should fill your mind with facts,” “You should fill out the form with facts.”

Did you know that we use “fill out a form” to talk about writing some information on a form? I use the simple verb “fill” in this more metaphorical way. Of course, you can fill a glass of water, but when you fill your mind with facts, your mind has a lot of factual information in it. It is filled with facts. Pair number three: found and found out. This is the past tense of find and find out.

“I… how to avoid the traffic,” “I… a better road to avoid traffic.” Which one of these needs the phrasal verb, and which one of these needs the phrasal verb? Think about it for three seconds. Three, two, one. Did you say, “I found out how to avoid the traffic.” Did you say, “I found a better road to avoid the traffic.”

I hope so. We use “find out” to talk about solving a problem, especially when we say “find out how” or “find out why.” Those are your keywords, how and why when we use “find out.” For a longer video about “find out” and “figure out,” you can check out this link up here, which is a video that I made about two years ago comparing these two similar and yet different phrasal verbs.

Pair number four: read, read over. Now, this pair of words here looks like “read” and “read over,” but the present and the past tense are spelled exactly the same. They’re just pronounced differently. We need the context here. Let’s take a look at the sentences. “She… the article three times,” “She… the newspaper this morning.” Which one should have “read,” and which one should have “read over”?

Think about it for a moment. Three, two, one. It is best to say “she read over the article three times” and “she read the newspaper this morning.” For this one, it’s okay to say “she read the article three times,” but if you want to emphasize that she read it in detail, this is “read over,” to look at something in detail, then you can use the phrasal verb “read over.” She read over the article three times in detail to find out everything.

Pair number five: used or used up. The sentences are, “Dan… the cream for his coffee,” “Dan, the cream for his coffee. Oh, no.” The only difference here is “oh, no.” Which one evokes the feeling of “oh, no.” Think about it for a moment. Three, two, one. Did you say, “Dan used the cream for his coffee,” and, “Dan used up the cream for his coffee. Oh, no.” I hope so. If Dan uses cream for his coffee, cool.

Okay. Doesn’t bother me. I don’t care. But if Dan uses up the cream for his coffee, this is a problem because it means that I don’t get any. “Use up” means to finish something completely. In the morning, when Dan makes his coffee, if he uses up the cream, I might be a little bit upset because then I don’t get any in my drink, so that’s why I said, “Oh, no.” Let’s go to the next one. Number six: call, call on.

Let’s look at the sentences. “If you don’t listen, the teacher will… your parents after class,” “If you don’t listen, the teacher will… you in class.” Which one feels the most correct for the phrasal verb? Three, two, one.

Did you say, “If you don’t listen, the teacher will call your parents after class,” “If you don’t listen, the teacher will call on you in class.” For me, this seems like it’s a universal truth, that if you’re not listening, if you’re about to fall asleep, the teacher will always call on you. The teacher knows who’s sleepy, who’s not paying attention, and they’ll say, “Vanessa. What’s number six?” Then you feel really scared.

When you call on someone, you ask them to answer a question. Have you ever experienced this in school that when you’re not paying attention, the teacher always calls on you? But if you call someone, “The teacher called my parents,” this means that she’s making a phone call. When someone makes a phone call to your parents, it’s always a bad thing, so if you’re not listening in class, the teacher might call your parents. She’s not calling on your parents. That feels a little bit weird.

She’s just simply calling your parents. Number seven is “got” and “got into.” The verb “got” is the past tense of “get” here, so let’s think about which one of these fits into these sentences. “I… English last year when I found Vanessa’s lessons,” “I finally… English last year when I found Vanessa’s lessons.” The only difference here is the word “finally.” Think about which one of these words is correct.

Three, two, one. “I got into English last year when I found Vanessa’s lessons,” “I finally got English last year when I found Vanessa’s lessons.” Why did we say, “I got into English last year.” That means that you started to become interested in English when you found my lessons, maybe that was true for you, I hope so, so you started to become interested in something, but the word “get” or in the past tense, “got,” by itself, has a lot of different meanings.

In this sentence, it means simply understood. Maybe you’ve never understood another native English speaker before, and then you watched my lessons and thought, “I can understand her. This is amazing,” so you might say, “I finally got English. It finally made sense to me when I found Vanessa’s lessons,” so you would say, “I finally got English when I found Vanessa’s lessons.”

Number eight: keep and keep on. Let’s look at the sentences. “Make sure that you… studying every day,” “Make sure that you… studying every day.” Which one of these is correct? Think about it for a moment. Do both of these sentences look exactly the same to you? This is a trick question.

I’m sorry. It’s because “keep” and “keep on” have exactly the same meaning. “Make sure that you keep studying every day,” “Make sure that you keep on studying every day.” This is exactly the same meaning. You could say, “Keep on running. Go, go, go,” or, “Keep running. Go, go, go.” Same meaning.

No problem. You can use keep or keep on, and they’re the same. Let’s go to the next one and the final question, number nine. Number nine: show and show up. “Why does she always… us pictures of her cats?” “Why does she always… 10 minutes late?” Which one is best with the simple verb, which one is best with the phrasal verb? Think about it for just a moment. Three, two, one.

“Why does she always show us pictures of her cats?” Probably because they’re really cute and she loves them and she wants you to love them too. “Why does she always show up 10 minutes late?” When someone shows up, they appear, they arrive at 10 minutes late. It’s pretty rude depending on the situation, but if it’s at work, do not show up 10 minutes late. Not a good idea if you want to keep your job.

All right, how did you do?