افعال عبارتی - Look

PHRASAL VERBS - LOOK

Hi, Everyone!

I’m Georgiana, founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help YOU speak English fluently.

In this episode:

• I’ll be discussing some more about the most common phrasal verbs. Today, we’ll take a look at the phrasal verbs created with the word “look.”

• After that, I will tell you a short story called the Point of View lesson, to help you with grammar and to review the vocabulary you will be learning.

Remember, a phrasal verb is just a verb and a particle. For example, “get in.” By the way, I recommend you to check out the previous episodes about phrasal verbs.

Remember, you just need to learn the most common phrasal verbs.. Also, instead of learning all the different meanings of each phrasal verb, you just need to learn one or two different meanings, preferably, the most common ones.

Ok, let’s get started! We’ll see what we can do with the word “look.”

Look after

It basically means to take care of somebody. For example: I can’t come with you because I have to look after my brother.

My boyfriend always looks after me.

Who’s going to look after the children?

Look down

This one means to think less of someone. Consider someone inferior. In other words, when you think that you’re better than someone.

Examples:

It’s wrong to look down on people with less money than you.

My boss always looks down on new employees.

Jim thinks they look down on him because he doesn’t have a job.

Look for

This phrasal verb is a must. It’s very common and easy to use. It means to try to find something. For example: I’m looking for a dress for the party.

Some people look for friends on the Internet.

The doctor will look for any problems in your health.

Look up

This phrasal verb means to find information, for example, a phone number, address, a word in a dictionary, etc. Let’s see it in context: If you don’t understand a word in English, you can look it up in a dictionary.

What time does the office close? I don’t know. You could look it up on the Internet.

Look out (watch out)

To be careful; to pay immediate attention to something or just to stay vigilant. Let’s see some examples: Look out! A dog’s coming!

Look out for cars when you cross the road.

When you go to the forest, look out for snakes.

You can also say ‘watch out,’ which has the same meaning.

For example: Watch out! An earthquake has just started!

Look into

Do you like Sherlock Holmes? Well, if you like him, then it’ll be easier to remember. To look into means to investigate, to try to find out. For example:

The detective looked into the suspect.

Of course, we can use it in other contexts, not only for detectives: We are looking into how we can improve our department.

We need to look into what happened with the marketing campaign.

Look forward

This is another common one. It means to be excited about something in the future. Don’t confuse it with “look for!” Let’s see it in context:

I’m really looking forward to our holiday.

I’m looking forward to seeing you next week.

I look forward to meeting you tonight.

He looks forward to graduating this year.

Great. Today, we’ve seen all these phrasal verbs: • Look after

• Look down

• Look for

• Look up

• Look out

• Look into

• Look forward

Amazing! Isn’t it?

However, can you remember the meaning? Don’t worry. We’ll practice them in the next section.

POINT OF VIEW

(Improve your grammar)

Let’s get started with the short story. I’m sure you’re excited to practice all the phrasal verbs you’ve learned today.

Here, I’ll use the Point of View Technique.

The main benefit of this technique is that it will help you to learn grammar intuitively, without boring exercises or memorizing rules.

This is how it works: I’ll tell you a short story more than one time.

Every time, I’ll change a grammar point of view. For example, I can change the tense or the person. This way, you’ll intuitively recognize the changes.

I will start with the present tense.

Ok, let’s get started:

Tim and Alfred are brothers. Tim’s older than Alfred. When their parents are not at home, Tim’s in charge. His duty is to look after his younger brother.

Little Alfred always looks forward to being alone with his brother because they have lots of fun together. They play video games, and not any video games, they play mystery games, with detectives, crimes, and police involved. Alfred is little, but he loves looking into crimes and strange things.

He’s great at looking for hints.

Tim respects Alfred because he’s very smart. In fact, Alfred can spell any word without looking up in a dictionary. That’s why Tim never looks down on his brother.

Little Alfred thinks he has the best brother. He wouldn’t look for another one if he could.

Ok, let’s change the point of view to the past tense. You’ll see how the grammar changes.

Tim and Alfred were brothers. Tim was older than Alfred.

When their parents were not at home, Tim was in charge.

His duty was to look after his younger brother.

Little Alfred always looked forward to being alone with his brother because they had lots of fun together. They played video games and not any video games, they played mystery games with detectives, crimes, and police involved. Alfred was little, but he loved looking into crimes and strange things. He was great at looking for hints.

Tim, respected Alfred because he was very smart. In fact, Alfred could spell any word without looking up in a dictionary.

That’s why Tim never looked down on his brother.

Little Alfred thought he had the best brother. He wouldn’t look for another one if he could.

Ok, one last time, let’s go into the future!

Tim and Alfred will be brothers. Tim will be older than Alfred.

When their parents won’t be at home, Tim will be in charge.

His duty will be to look after his younger brother.

Little Alfred will always look forward to being alone with his brother because they will have lots of fun together. They will play video games, and not any video games, they will play mystery games, with detectives, crimes, and police involved.

Alfred will be little, but he will love looking into crimes and strange things. He will be great at looking for hints.

Tim, will respect Alfred because he will be very smart. In fact, Alfred will be able to spell any word without looking up in a dictionary. That’s why Tim will never look down on his brother.

Little Alfred will think he has the best brother. He wouldn’t look for another one if he could.

Ok, this is the end of this short lesson. As you can see, just by changing a point of view of the story, you can learn grammar intuitively. Today, we’ve practiced the past, present and the future tenses. Also, we’ve managed to review today’s phrasal verbs!

This is one of the techniques that I use in my courses. I recommend you to take a look at:

Courses.SpeakEnglishPodcast.com

Ok, this is the end of this episode. Remember to listen to it several times. It will help with your English.

See you next week and have a fantastic day!

Goodbye!