hi everybody and welcome back to love English with Layla and Sabrah
I'm Sabrah I'm a British University teacher and today I have a lesson for
you all about ten phrasal verbs with the preposition down now I made this video
because last time I made the video about phrasal verbs with up and I said to you
in that video which preposition would you like me to do next
and you asked for down so that's why we're doing 10 phrasal verbs with the
preposition down now as I said previously with regards to up up tends
to be when we want something to be more for example liven up means please be
more active be more lively now we're down it's the opposite we can't say liven
down English is not that simple but when we do say something down we mean we
want something to be less we would like less of that thing
for example calm down means please please be calmer be less active be be less
stressed please calm down so up and down with phrasal verbs work like this number
one break down break down now phrasal verbs often have two or more meanings
this one has two meanings so sometimes when when a phrasal verb has two
meanings I will explain to you both of them it's like two for the price of one
so break down now this means something is not working it's not functioning its
collapsed or there's some kind of problem so for example your car can break down
this is a mechanical failure your dishwasher can break down again a
mechanical failure so we frequently use it with these
things oh my car's broken down I needed to call
the emergency services because my car broke down the second meaning is where
we talk about a relationship or a system or something between
people not working anymore we can say that this has broken down so if two
people are not getting on anymore their relationship is not working you can say
their relationship has broken down their relationship has broken it down number
two now I mentioned this one previously but I want to go into a little bit more
detail about it and it is - calm down - calm down now this can be used for
people or for things for example you can say to your friend if she's stressed you
can say calm down everything's going to be okay and this means be calmer but you
can also use this about things for example you can say ah the weather has
calmed down there was a storm last night but now it's raining less it's less
windy it's calmed down so it's for people and things and of course also
animals I'm always hoping my dog will calm down
he's always barking I'm always telling him round down number three to put down
so to put down means physically to put something down so to put the pen down on
the table to put down the dinner to put down something so it's quite simple in
that sense but the second meaning is a bit different so when we say to put down
someone we can of course mean someone who is smaller for example a child
children often will say put me down if they are being carried by their parent
but the other meaning is not as literal it's not physical the other meaning is
when we put somebody down we we make them feel bad about themselves
for example we make negative comments about them or we insult them or someone
can of course do this to us so for example your brother might make jokes in
front of his friends and say that you are not good at maths and you can say to
him don't put me down don't put me down you're putting me down so making making
someone feel bad about themselves to put someone down I'm sure we've all been in
this situation before where someone puts us down or maybe we have not been very
nice and we've put someone down and maybe said something
negative about them often in front of other people so this is more
embarrassing for them so it's not a nice thing to do everybody so don't do that
number four now this one has a very positive meaning but it also has a
negative meaning two very different meanings this is - to get down - to get down
now the first meaning is can you guess? It means to enjoy yourself on the dance
floor to dance a lot to get down in the Michael Jackson song the Thriller I'm
sure you know this song thriller it says and those who ever can be found without
the soul for getting down meaning you need to dance a lot enjoy yourself
to get down the second meaning however is quite negative and it means to feel
sad to feel low to get down for example at this time of year the weather is not
very good and I can sometimes get a bit down I can get down because the weather
is not very good and I like the sunshine so it can make me feel a bit depressed
or a bit low other things can get you down maybe your football team's recent
performance is getting you down and you wish they would just win a match that might
get you down so it's not a permanent situation it's just when we feel a
little bit depressed to get down what gets you down please tell me about it in
the comments I would like to know about that what gets you down
number five hold down hold down and this again it has a physical meaning and a
less physical meaning so to hold down means literally to hold something down
so imagine that it is windy you might need to hold down your paper or your
book so it doesn't blow away in the wind to hold down we can hold someone down
for example you could say the police had to hold down the thief to stop him
escaping the police had to hold down the thief to stop him escaping and this
means physically not let him move so to hold down now the meaning that isn't
physical is when we want to keep something we managed to keep hold
of something in our lives normally we use this about a job so if you hold down
a job you keep the job even if there were some difficulties so for example
you could say my mother held down her job even though she had three children
this means she kept her job even though so as well
she was looking after three children or you could say my dad held down his job
even when he was ill so he kept his job so to hold down a job or to hold down a
career it means to keep something even when there are difficulties number six
this is to back down to back down and this is we're in a situation where there
is conflict or where people are being aggressive to each other where one of
these people or one of these groups of people decides to come out of the
conflict they decide that they will not be aggressive anymore even if they think
they are right they will come out of this and they will say okay okay I'm
wrong or I'm sorry and they will come back from this so it's something that
often happens between family members in relationships but it can also happen
between companies for example if you're complaining about a company you might be
trying to sue the company which means taking them to a court so legally trying
to get money back for something that you think they have done wrong to you and if
you are trying to do this but you feel that it's not going to be successful you
could back down which means you could stop this and say okay I think you were
wrong but in this case I won't pursue this anymore I won't carry on with this
more aggressive behavior number seven to settle down now this means to have a
calmer lifestyle to start to have perhaps a more routine lifestyle so often we say
we settle down when we've got married or we have children so we've settled down
we're not as young and perhaps our life is not as changeable as it used to be
you can also use this with for example if a person
a little bit stressed or things like that you can use settle down in a
similar way to calm down you can say settle down if they are getting a bit
stressed or even a bit aggressive you can say whoa settle down so it's similar
in that sense to settle is to be more calm or more relaxed more stable so
settle down number eight we have two meanings here and this is the phrasal
verb to turn down to turn down so this can mean to turn down the volume for
example if you're playing the radio or the television you can say oh please
turn it down please turn down the volume and this means please make the volume
lower the second meaning however is to say no to say no to an invitation or to
to something that somebody has offered you so for example if someone says would
you like to come for dinner with me and you say no thank you
you have turned them down you said you would not like to so to turn down it can
also be in the case of for example a job opportunity if someone offers you a job
but you decide I don't want to take that job you can turn them down so it's a
general thing where we say no to an offer or an invitation number nine to
knock something down to knock down so to knock down means to take something down
to literally physically knock it down for example you can knock down a wall so
normally you would need something quite big to knock down the wall it means to
destroy it to remove it completely to knock something down old buildings often
get knocked down after a long time they are not useful anymore so somebody
knocks them down so finally number 10 we got there everybody it took us quite a
long time but we've arrived at number 10 this is look down on to look down on and
this is a little bit of a negative phrasal verb and it means that someone
can think they are superior to another person so to look down on someone means
that you you think you are better than that person for some reason you think
that you are richer cleverer more good-looking but you make this
obvious to the person you make this clear
so it's not very nice so to look down on someone so people often complain about
this they might say oh the rich people in my street they look down on us
because we're not as rich as them or someone at work might look down on you
they might think that you are not in such a high position as them so they
might they might look down on you and not treat you as an equal to look down
on someone right guys that was our 10 phrasal verbs with down if you haven't
watched my video on 10 phrasal verbs with up go and watch that now please
leave a comment try and use these phrasal verbs once you start to use them
you'll remember them they are very common so please leave a comment and I
will I promise that I will have a look at that and check that you are saying it
correctly remember guys if you enjoyed this video
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for some grammar and you would like to learn about the grammar of phrasal verbs
so which phrasal verbs are separable and which are inseparable and where to put
the object in the separable phrasal verbs go and watch Layla's fantastic
video on the grammar of phrasal verbs thank you very much for joining me today
guys hope to see you soon. bye bye