- Do you wish that you had a way to more easily learn
and remember phrasal verbs in English?
In today's lesson,
I'll explain and show you a fun tip on how to do that.
Hi, I'm your English coach, Christina,
and welcome to Speak English with Christina.
The best place to become more confident
speaking business English step by step.
One thing that students always struggle with in English
is how to learn and remember phrasal verbs.
Well, today I wanna share with you a fun technique
that's going to use your imagination and your creativity
but more importantly, it's going to help you
always remember new phrasal verbs.
All right, today, I have a tip for you.
TIP, T-I-P, it stands for Turn Into a Picture.
We're going to take a few phrasal verbs,
and we're going to turn them into,
transform them into pictures in your mind
so that you can visualize them,
you can more easily remember them.
So, let's take the first phrasal verb, get back to you.
It's a very common phrasal verb in business English.
I was on the phone just the other day and I used it
and I said, oh, that would be a good one for this video.
So, get back to you.
Now, get back to you,
it means to recontact someone, to contact someone again.
For example, let me find the answer
and I'll get back to you with some information.
I'll recontact you with some information.
So we're going to create,
we're gonna turn that phrasal verb into a picture.
So let's imagine, get.
The word get, it means like to grab
or to obtain or to reach something.
So let's say, get, and then back.
So like, you're back here, to get back to someone.
So it means you're going to recontact someone
so we can turn that into a visual image
of like, you running behind someone, running after them
and you're trying to grab,
you're trying to get their back
so that you can tell them something.
So there's one little mental image
that you can have for get back to someone.
Now, you might be thinking, Christina, I,
that's a silly little story.
I would never run after someone and grab them by their back.
But you know what?
It is a little, it is a silly story,
but who are the people who learn languages best?
Children.
Children, so many of my students,
they say, oh, I'm too old to learn English very well.
Or I should have started when I was a child
they learn so much more easily,
but why do they learn more easily?
Because they use their imagination,
because they're creative,
because they're not afraid make these silly stories
and to say silly things,
because they're using that part of their brain
and that's going to help you to have fun with it
but also more importantly, to remember it.
So don't be afraid to make silly stories.
The sillier, the more unusual, the more memorable it is.
Okay, our second phrasal verb, an example, to break down.
So, to break down, it means to take like a big process
or a very complex explanation,
for example, in a presentation
and to really divide it into the little individual steps
so that your listener
can better understand what you're talking about
really step-by-step.
And I, and that's what I try to do with my lessons
is to really break things down
so that you can understand English better.
So, if we break down something, this is quite easy.
We can visually imagine we've got an object,
which we break, like we break into little pieces
and then we put those pieces down on the floor
or the table,
but when we break it and we put it down
and we're standing over it, looking at it,
we can really see a global overview and we can understand
or we can see the little individual parts.
So, if you want something visual to break down something,
imagine yourself literally breaking it,
putting it down on the floor
so that you can see all those parts
and maybe get a better global vision of it.
And again, like I said, the idea is not to make a story
or an image that is super interesting or intellectual,
or, it's really just to give you something,
that's gonna allow your brain
to remember what that phrasal verb means.
All right.
And a third, very common business English phrasal verb
is to reach out.
You might see this in an email,
thanks for reaching out to me.
Or you may say it, I'm reaching out to you
to propose a collaboration or something like that.
Anyway, when, we often use it in emails
to reach out to someone,
it basically means, like I'm contacting you
for the first time.
So, let's imagine, what's the kind of image
or story that we can create with that?
We often use it in email,
it's often for sort of a first contact.
We can almost imagine like someone is reaching their hands,
like through the screen,
they're coming out, they're reaching out of the screen,
trying to get your attention
or to get you to respond to them.
So we can imagine that, like, you're writing your email,
I'm reaching out to you
so I'm reaching through your screen,
I'm reaching out to you
to try to establish that first connection.
So that's three examples of phrasal verbs,
and three ways
that you can turn those phrasal verbs into pictures.
Remember that TIP, turn it into a picture.
But if you want other things
that you can do with these phrasal verbs
once you see it, you turn it into a picture,
but now you know that you need to do something with it
to really practice and sort of assimilate it
into your English vocabulary,
here are five things that you can do with it.
The first thing is very simple.
Just read it, note it down somewhere
that you can see it often
like on a post-it on your computer
is a very easy way to do that.
Be sure to look at the definition of it.
You can go onto a good online dictionary or Linguee.
There's lots of different sites.
You can just type, for example, reach out to definition
and you'll find the definition.
Then you wanna do something
now that you know the phrasal verbs.
So, set a goal for yourself.
Maybe you want to learn three phrasal verbs a week
or maybe it's just one per day.
If you learned one phrase over per day,
you could learn 30 phrasal verbs in a month,
365 phrasal verbs in a year.
Imagine what your English would be like
if you mastered 365 more phrasal verbs.
You can do it,
but then try to use it.
Use it in conversations, use it in your emails.
You have more time to think when you're writing emails.
So, maybe try to use it in emails or like chat
if you use chat at your work.
And then teach it to a coworker or a friend
or a colleague or something.
I'm sure you have coworkers
who are also improving their English,
tell them, hey, I learned this new phrasal verb,
to get back to someone.
And I imagined running after someone
because I want to get their back,
I want to recontact them, reconnect with them.
Teach it to someone because when you're teaching it,
you're also going more in depth.
You're deepening your own learning.
All right.
So, that's your technique
for turning phrasal verbs into pictures,
but also remembering them better.
And if you would like to learn more phrasal verbs with me,
then sign up, subscribe to my YouTube channel
so you get lots more business English videos.
And also go ahead and watch this next lesson,
which has a lot more phrasal verbs for you.
And you can start trying this turn into picture technique.
All right, I will see you over in the next lesson.