افعال عبارتی UP

Phrasal verbs with “UP”

Prepositions and phrasal verbs, I hate them you hate them but there is a super easy way to learn lots of phrasal verbs, in like a second. If you understand how the preposition works then you’ll understand millions of phrasal verbs. Ok maybe not millions but, you know, a lot.

First, what’s a phrasal verb? It’s a verb with one or two particles, prepositions, which isn’t usually easy to understand so everyone hates them. But again learn the common meanings of that preposition and it’s super easy. “UP” is a really interesting preposition, it’s so useful. Of course sometimes a verb with up, it’s obvious. It’s a direction of movement. For example: Surprise! Surprise! Happy birthday! Look up! I make that sign! I made it! “Look up”, “Look down”, basically any verb which gives movement and “UP” implies movement in that direction. The second common meaning of “UP” is also quite easy, quite obvious. If you want to say something “Increased”, “This year, our sales INCREASED”, you might use the preposition “UP”. For example: “This year our sales WENT UP” “Sales went up” they increased. Change that verb to add more meaning. Let’s imagine that the sales went up very fast. We want to say increase, so the preposition is UP, but which verb implies movement in that direction very fast? We could have “Jump”, “Leap”,”Rocket”. So you could say “The sales jumped up / the sales leapt up / rocketed up”. And if you’re going to take the IELTS exam, those phrasal verbs are very useful, particularly for the writing section and the reading too, speaking too, listening too. All of it.

Oh and of course you know “Turn up”. “To turn up the volume” = To increase the volume. If it’s cold, I might want to turn up the heat. To increase the heat. See! Your phrasal verb vocabulary is going up loads already. We also use a verb with up to add emphasis to say: I completely finished something or I did it to completion. What do I mean? Here’s an example: If I say “I cleaned”, it might mean I cleaned everything. It might mean I cleaned a little bit here and there. But, if I say “I cleaned UP”, this now sounds like, yeah, I cleaned everything. Again, it just adds emphasis to say you’ve finished something, it’s completed, it’s done, everything! Let’s use it in other situations. For example there’s pizza in the kitchen. Well there was pizza in the kitchen but you ate ALL of the pizza, how might you say this? Of course you could say: “I ate it all” that’s fine. But if you add UP, “I ate it all up”, you’re adding emphasis to mean EVERYTHING! And in this case you could remove “all”. So: “Yeah, I ate it up! What?! Don’t judge me! I like pizza!”. So let’s look at that in other verbs. For example: you’re in a pub, it’s time to leave but, you still have your drink. This looks like pee. Your friends say “Come on, we have to leave, FINISH your drink”. What will they say to you? “Come on we have to go! Drink UP!”

If you go to your friend’s house and you want to use their milk, you might ask “Can I use your milk?”. But what if you finish the milk? What will you tell your friend? To add that emphasis to say “I FINISHED your milk, “I used up your milk”. “Sorry, I used up your milk”. It just adds emphasis. The exception however, if you watched all of Walking Dead, you completed it, you would NOT say “I watched up all of Walking Dead”. We don’t say that this way. For some verbs we just don’t use them. If you said it, we would understand from the preposition, from the context, but it’s the style, we just, we don’t say that. My rule of thumb is, if you hear someone using a verb with up in that context, then you can use it. It means it’s in common use.

Another meaning of UP means to approach someone or something and this phrasal verb is usually “UP TO someone”/ “UP TO something”. For example: I was in a bar and this guy came up to me and asked for a fight. In other words, he approached me, he came near to me, he came close to me. He came UP TO me. Change the verb, make it interesting. How can you approach someone? You can walk up to someone You could run up to someone or, why not, I saw a cute girl and I danced up to her. In a car, you can drive up to the entrance of a building. So in this way, the preposition UP has this “arrive” feeling to it. Like in those last examples.

And one very useful phrasal verb to remember is “Show up” or “Turn up”. They mean “arrive in a strange or unexpected way”. For example: you can turn up to work two hours late. Show up to work five hours early. Not just late or early, something is strange or different about how you arrived. For example, if I die and at my funeral this happens… Aly’s dead. Seriously? You showed up in a banana suit!? Are you mental? Okay, actually if I die one day, I insist, I’m saying it here officially; At my funeral everyone must be in banana suits, otherwise you’re not invited.

Now you know the common meanings of UP, you can adapt that so many many different verbs. That is how we native speakers know and understand phrasal verbs through the preposition. Okay next, in these phrasal verbs the preposition up, doesn’t follow the logic of what we just learned; The meanings are completely random. But they’re the most useful, common phrasal verbs that I can give you.

Let’s go! End up and Wind up. You’re telling a story. Lots of things happen in the story but you want to say how the story ends, how the situation finishes. Use END UP or WIND UP. “For example: Oh man I went drinking last Friday, I ended up in France the next morning!” It just means the end of a story. Make up, there are two meanings of this phrasal verb. One of them mean,s to invent a lie, make a story. You lie, basically. “Yeah can I have a regular latte, please? Hi! Hi! You know, I work for… Bitcoin. Oh really? No, that’s a lie, I’m sorry. I made it up. Uh huh”. However another meaning of make up or make up with someone; This means you had a friendship or a relationship. You stopped that friendship in a bad way, you’re not friends, you don’t like each other but then you become friends again; You “make up” or “make up with each other”. For example: - I hate you - I hate YOU! - Aww I love you let’s be friends again! - Okay - Aww! - They made up!

Come up, when something unexpected happens, maybe a problem, something “CAME UP”. For example: “Oh I’m so sorry, I have to leave, something’s just come up but I’ll call you later”. This is very useful when you want to cancel a meeting but not give details about why. “Something came up! I have to not do the thing!”. Come up with, this time you need to improvise. Create an idea, a story, a plan, then you COME UP WITH something. For example: “What are you doing for Valentine’s Day? Noooo! That’s tomorrow, isn’t it?! I’ll buy flowers or something. I’ll come up with something!” Hurry up!, you want someone to move faster, say Hurry up!. Example: “Ugh! Hurry up, I want my coffee!”. Break up, when a relationship ends, use “break up” or “split up”. Example: “Why are we breaking up? Is this because I fart in bed? Yeah it’s exactly that”. To look something up, you want to find information, to Google something, for example: You want to find an address, a phone number, some information, you LOOK it UP. You find that information. For example: “Excuse me, mmm, where does the Queen live? I don’t know actually, I’ll look it up”. To throw up, it means to vomit. Sometimes it happens to everyone. “Lucy! Are you okay? Well, don’t throw up! This is a clean shirt! Urgh! Wait you’re not gonna - No! No! No! No! Gross! Oh I’m so sorry!”. And finally, when something explodes, it Blows up. “Whoa! Oh my god, did you see that? A car just blew up!