There are thousands of phrasal verbs in English. They are a normal part of the language – that’s why it’s important to learn them!
However, because there are so many, it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are five really useful phrasal verbs to learn quickly.
1 find out If you find out something, you learn a fact or some information that you didn’t know before:
- [we often use a question word after ‘find out’] I hope mum doesn’t find out why we were late.
- [we often use about after ‘find out’] Anna was angry when she found out about the broken glass.
- [we often use a that clause after ‘find out’] I found out that he came from Manchester.
2 throw away If you throw something away, or throw away something, you get rid of it, usually by putting it in a rubbish bin/trash can.
- Don’t throw away the chicken bones – I’ll use them to make soup.
- James threw all his old school books away.
3 run out If something runs out, all of it is used, and if you run out you don’t have any more of something because you have used it all.
- The shop sells great bread, but they usually run out by lunch time.
- I need to go to the shop – we’ve run out of eggs.
- The water ran out before she’d finished her shower.
4 sort out If you sort out a problem or a difficult situation, or sort the problem out, you deal with it and solve the problems.
- Our washing machine isn’t working, but someone’s coming to sort it out tomorrow.
- We managed to sort out our personal problems and we have a great relationship now.
5 break down If a vehicle or other machine breaks down, it stops working because something is wrong with it. We also say that a person breaks down if their vehicle stops working.
- We had to climb the stairs because the lift had broken down.
- We broke down on the way home from Paul’s house.
I hope these phrasal verbs are useful for you. Why not give yourself a challenge and learn 5 phrasal verbs every day for a month? Our book: Phrasal verbs: 30 days to learn 150 essential phrasal verbs can help you with a great selection of phrasal verbs and exercises to check your progress. For more general information on phrasal verbs, see the post Everything you need to know about phrasal verbs.
0 Comments