Welcome to JForrest English.
I'm
Jennifer.
And today, you're
going to add 10 phrasal verbs to your vocabulary.
That will help you sound fluent and natural.
First,
I'm going to quiz you to see how well, you know, these phrasal verbs and then I'll explain
each one in detail.
Let's get started question, 1.
My boss didn't take my concern seriously, she
Now I'll only give you three
seconds to answer, so if you need more time, hit pause, take as much time as you need.
And when you're ready, hit play.
She Shrugged it off.
Question to the text on your screen is a little small.
Can you?
Can you zoom in question, 3?
I feel like Tony uses his injury, too.
All the work.
To wiggle out of question for, I still have 20 unread emails too.
To get through question 5 this year, the board acquiring one of our competitors.
The board is aiming at question six.
I wasn't planning on eating the entire cake, but my friends.
My friend egged me on question
7.
That job was perfect.
I don't know why Tracy
Turned it down.
Question, eight.
I have an important meeting today.
I hope traffic doesn't
hold me up.
Question, 9.
I'm almost ready for the party.
I just need to before we leave.
Fresh enough.
Question 10, we have so much in common so we really
Hit it off.
Now, don't worry if that quiz was difficult because now I'm going to explain every phrasal
verb in detail, and if you would like more personalized support to help you understand,
the phrasal verbs, idioms and expressions that need of speakers use.
Then I recommend the finally fluent Academy.
This is my premium training program, where we study native English speakers on TV, movies
and YouTube.
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Expressions to help you sound fluent and natural and to help you become fluent in as little
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You can look in the description below for the link to join and now I'll explain every
phrasal verb in detail.
Number one to aim at and you aim at a Target and when you aim at a Target, this means to
intend to achieve that Target.
So you would just try.
You try to achieve that Target.
For example, they're aiming at reducing, their costs by 10%.
So what's the Target in this sentence?
Reducing their costs.
By 10% that entire Clause is the Target.
Now notice we have a gerund verb so you can absolutely have a gerund berm.
You can aim at doing something.
So a, gerund verb, you can also use a noun for example.
His slingshot was aimed at his neighbor's garage.
So the Target in this example, is the neighbor's garage and his slingshot was aimed at because
that's the target, he's attempting to achieve number two.
This is a great one to shrug off.
When you shrug something off, you disregard it.
You don't consider it important.
So I could say his insult.
An insult is something - you say to another person, his insult was aimed at me to use
our first phrasal verb.
His insult was aimed at me, but I Shrugged it off.
I said Ma, I don't care.
I'm not going to let it bother me.
I'm not going to let it hurt me.
It's not important.
I'm going to disregard it.
I'm going to shrug
It off.
Now notice what I'm doing with my shoulders because this is the verb shrug, you can shrug
your shoulders and we generally do that when we want to say, meh whatever we
tend to shrug our shoulders.
So that's where this expression comes from number 32 egg on.
That's right.
Egg on.
This is a fun one.
When you awake someone on you encourage them to do so.
Something but that something isn't in their best interest.
For example.
Let's say a student is arguing with their teacher.
Now that probably isn't in the students best interest to argue with the teacher, but if
the other students are saying, yeah, keep going.
You're doing great.
They're egging him on.
They're egging that student on
On their encouraging, that student to keep arguing even though arguing isn't in his best
interest or let's say you're considering doing something a little risky, like jumping off
a high cliff.
When you don't know what's beneath you, and maybe you're not really serious about it.
But the crowd eggs, you Anto, do it, you can do it, you should do it there.
Encouraging you
No, I can have a really negative outcome.
The crowd egged him on to jump off the cliff.
Now most likely you won't use this in your everyday vocabulary, but you'll commonly hear
this on TV in movies or when you're reading.
So I wanted to share it with you so you're not confused.
When you see this
egg
on and you have no idea what they're talking about.
Now, you do number four to turn down.
When you turn something down, it means you reject that something, and we use this in
the context of an offer, or an invitation, for example, they offered her the job, but
she turned it down.
She said no to the job.
So, of course, you can say, she rejected but it's very common more, common to say, she
turned it down so you can
Turn down something like a job offer.
You can also turn down an invitation from someone else, a social invitation or a romantic
invitation.
For example, I ask Marissa out, but she turned me down.
When you ask someone out, it means you invite them to dinner or a coffee for romantic purposes.
I ask Marissa out, but she just
She turned me down.
She rejected my offer number five to zoom in or the opposite to zoom out.
If there are any photographers here, you already know what this means because when you zoom
in the object becomes closer and when you zoom out the object becomes farther away and
I'm sharing this with you because everyone is needing on video conference now,
When you're having a video
conference,
you have a camera that's focusing on you and is really important.
You have the correct Zoom, you don't want to be too close if you're too close to the
camera, you need to zoom out.
If you're too far you need to zoom in so you might ask a colleague.
Hey I can't see you very well.
Can you zoom in or a colleague?
Might tell you your pictures all blurry you need to zoom out so now
Now, you know what that means for your next video.
Call number six to wiggle out of this is a great one.
When you wiggle out of something, you avoid a situation, a task a chore, a responsibility
that you don't really want to do and you avoid it in a cunning way.
So let's say that tomorrow, you're supposed to clean out the garage and you don't really
want to but
Wife or your husband, your sister, your brother, whoever wants you to clean out the garage.
Now tomorrow, when you're supposed to clean out that garage, maybe you get an urgent phone
call, just at the right moment and you have to go to work and finish something.
But you planned that phone call, you plan that phone call to take place, right?
As you needed to clean the garage.
So you did that in a cunning.
Going way.
So you try to wiggle out of cleaning the garage.
So basically when you're asked to do something and then you try to avoid it by creating a
scenario
where
you have another responsibility or maybe a friend asked you to move but you tell them
oh you have a back injury so you hurt your back and now you can't help them move.
So you try to wiggle out of it.
Number 7,
Tell, hold up.
This is a must know phrasal verb because we use it when you're delayed and you're delayed
specifically while you're traveling.
This could be traveling on a flight or a train.
So one more long distance travel, but it can also just be traveling from your office to
another board room or from your house to the car so it can be a very short distance travel.
Or a more longer travel as well.
For example, my kids always hold me up when I'm trying to leave, so you're trying to leave
the house and then your kids, mom mom.
I need this.
Help me find that.
Do this for me and they delay.
You, they delay you, when you're trying to leave, you're trying to travel my kids.
Always hold me up.
Now, we commonly use this in.
Passive form.
So you might have an appointment that you're trying to get to and you're late.
And when you get to that appointment, you can say, sorry, I'm late.
I was held up to be held up.
I was held up by my kids.
Oh, I was held
up
number eight, to hit it off.
This is a great one.
When you hit it off, it means you have a very positive.
Positive relationship with someone right from the first time you meet them.
So let's say you have a new co-worker and the first conversation you have, you realized
you have a lot in common, you really like the person they're nice.
They're funny.
They like you the conversations going really well, you can say, wow, we really hit it off,
hit it off, that it
Is just our relationship, we hit our relationship off, but we always use it.
We really hit it off.
Now, notice how I also said, we, we almost always use this expression with the subject.
We my coworker, and I or we my coworker and I hit it off.
I would not say I hit it off with my coworker, that sounds
It's unnatural.
We say we hit it off number 9 to get through when you get through something, it simply
means you finish it but that something is usually a chore or an unpleasant task something
that isn't enjoyable.
For example, I have ten reports I need to get through
Either end of the day, I have ten reports.
I need to finish by the end of the day, but when I use the phrasal verb, get through it
implies, there's going to be some effort, some struggle.
I don't really enjoy the task number 10.
So, freshen up, when you freshen up, you quickly,
improve your
appearance.
So
before you go into a meeting or
Or to a social event, you can freshen up, you can go into the bathroom and you can brush
your hair, you can put on fresh lipstick, you can check your makeup.
Now, if you're a guy maybe you put on deodorant or cologne things like that, so you quickly
improve
your appearance you freshen up.
So let's say you're going out for a nice dinner.
You might say, oh, just give
Give me five minutes to
freshen
up now that you're more comfortable with the phrasal verbs.
How about we do that exact same quiz again and you can compare your score here are the
questions
hit pause.
Take as much time as you need and when you're ready, hit play to see the answers.
Here are your answers?
So hit, pause,
take as much time as you
need to review the answers.
So what's your favorite phrasal verb from the list?
Share that in the comments below?
I think mine is to egg.
Someone on.
That's a really fun and weird phrasal verb and don't forget to download your free speaking
guide where I share six tips on how to speak English, fluently, and confidently, you can
download it from my website right here and when you're ready, get started with your next
lesson.