Phrasal Verbs with "Off"

Phrasal Verbs with “Off”

Today we’re doing phrasal verbs with” Off” First, what is a phrasal verb? The phrasal verb is a verb and a preposition put together to mean something crazy. Lots of people ask me how can I learn phrasal verbs. There are thousands of them. English is ridiculous, Yes, I agree with you :.English is ridiculous!

There are thousands of phrasal verbs, how can you learn them all !? Well the good news is that usually the preposition can have a general meaning. So if you understand what the preposition means in general, you canunderstand a lot of different phrasal verbs just from understanding the preposition or at least have a good guess. So we’re going to do this in two parts .

One will show the common meanings of “off “,and in the second part I’ll show you some more phrasal verbs with “off” which don’t have that common meaning but are quite useful. So the common meaning of “off “in a phrasal verb means to separate something. Let me give you an example, what is the verb if I do this? We can say tear or rip in a sentence, I ripped the paper I tore the paper in a past tense. But the paper is still together, it’s still one piece ,right ? So, what then if I separated the paper by tearing it ? Well,now we can use that preposition” off “ .

remember that that preposition “off means to separate something. right? So I separated the paper by ripping it or by tearing it We can make a phrasal verb with this. so the prepositions “off”. Its separated ,the method was ripping or tearing. So we can say as a sentence :I ripped or tore the paper off Can I say the other way? Yes.I ripped off the paper, I rip the paper off! Okay, so you get the idea the preposition shows what happened, the verb shows how it happened.

This is dangerous don’t do this okay? what’s this verb? “cut” ,right? It’s still together so we don’t use the preposition “off” in this sentence I cut the paper past ,cut ,cut, cut ! But, what did I do ?I cut the paper off ,other ways we can use this: You know the phrasal verb to take off. For example, you get home and you take off your shoes. Separate the shoes from your feet .Maybe you’re very tired and you just want to kick off your shoes. The method kick and your hat you could take off your hat ,or you could throw off your hat. Because you’re dramatic and your life is a mess. OK, so we get that common meaning is to separate from something, right ? So how about another example . Let’s say you with your friend. You’re talking good time, right?

But then your friend says this: hugg, you’re a normal person So this should be your reaction, you want to separate from your friend by walking. So ,probably guessed it Remember ,”separate off” What’s the method of separating from your friend ? Walking ?So the verb to walk off You could say walk away.,that’s fine too. But let’s be good and make this sentence. This is past ,so, I walked off. Its a regular verb, I walked off . If your friend says :I love Donald Trump and justin bieber You don’t need to walk off You need to ‘‘(lover her)’’ run off. Passive run is ran. I ran off ,so just remember that this the preposition can not always .But can show you what happened :separation and the verb shows you how it happened. You can walk off ,run off you can even drive off ! But of course, you must remember that is the general meaning “off”.

That doesn’t mean that every phrasal verb with off implies separation. Generally ,yes! And sometimes you can understand the meaning if you understand that proposition. But ,some just have random meetings and you just need to remember them from context and examples. so the random ones which don’t imply separation. Are these ones pay off?! In some countries you can pay off the police. What does it mean ?Let’s imagine you’re driving too fast and the police stop you. You could give them money and they’ll say: okay ,fine .You can go . In this example ,he paid off the policeman or he paid the policeman off . you can separate this phrasal verb. He paid the police off or he paid off the police. Super common one that you will use every day.

This one , everyone uses everyday! Because it means a machine or an alarm or something makes a sound . So for example, what just happened? My phone went past off . My phone went off .So this is a machine and alarm notification sound .So a fire along could go off. Your phone could go off ,maybe it’s the alarm in the morning ,maybe someone’s calling you .Both ways it’s a notification sound .Your phone goes off the alarm goes off. But it also could be an explosion! For example, a bomb goes off important thing to remember with this phrasal verb ,there is no object! It’s reflective .So we don’t need anything there. My phone went it off, no ,my phone went off it in year. No ,none of that. My phone went off ,the alarm went off. Okay ,next one. To put something off. let’s imagine it’s your wedding day . Aooo look how happy she is. I think we should “put off” the wedding What does it mean of put off the wedding? .

Is he not happy to put off something or to put something off means to delay it, postponed it ,do it later .He’s saying, let’s not get married today. Maybe tomorrow ,maybe next week ,maybe maybe,next year. that bastard!!! Well, her response to this is this: She’s saying let’s just call off the wedding .So remember he asked let’s put off the wedding, make it later. she’s now saying let’s CALL OFF the wedding. I think you guessed what call off means It means to just cancel an event so you can call off a wedding. Can CALL OFF a meeting the same with PUT OFF. For example I can’t meet you today. Let’s put off the meeting until tomorrow. let’s put off the meeting until next week So to clarify ,put off to delay something ,to call off, to cancel an event or a meeting. Another pretty common phrasal verb is to SHOW OFF. This is to flaunt what you have to say. Look at this thing I have it is so cool and I’m so cool because I have it. Now of course It has that negative feeling when someone is showing off. Its not a good thing.

You would say to someone stop showing off .For example, if you want to first people that says look at my car it’s worth 1 million pounds .Then you’re an idiot and you should stop showing off showing off is annoying .Whole sentence: he is showing off. you’ll notice it doesn’t have an object. But it could .We could say he’s showing his car off or he’s showing off his car. you have a choice you don’t have to use the object near. only with expensive things you buy .No, But you want to say look at me ,I’m cold because I have it. If you’re one of the people who does this on Instagram takes a selfie after a Jem’Hadar look at my muscles, look at how sexy I am .This guy is showing off .Again , We could separate it showing his muscles off ,showing off his muscles ,or without an object. he’s showing off. .