Do you find it difficult to pick up new phrasal verbs? I bet that most of you are sometimes pretty much confused when you use them. Well, cheer up because in this post I am going to present you a few phrasal verbs with the particle “up”.
pick up
- to lift something or someone from a surface
E.g. James was not afraid of spiders so he picked it up and looked at it carefully.
- to collect, to gather
E.g. In autumn we go into the forest and pick up the overnight fallen chestnuts.
- to take someone in a vehicle
E.g. She waited at the station until her husband came to pick her up.
- to acquire knowledge by learning or experience
E.g. He picked up a few Italian expressions while visiting Rome.
- to start something again from the point where you stopped
E.g. We will pick up this conversation when I get back from work.
cheer up
- to become less unhappy or to make someone feel less unhappy
E.g. His friends did everything they could to cheer him up but he couldn’t stop crying.
take up
- to start doing something regularly as a habit or interest
E.g. I took up jogging because I felt I had to lose some weight.
- to make something shorter
E.g. Her skirt was too long so she took it up a little bit.
look up
- to search a particular piece of information in a book
E.g. You should look up any unknown word in a dictionary.
- to become better, to improve
E.g. Our financial situation is finally looking up.
break up
- to finish a relationship
E.g. Their relationship wasn’t going very well so they decided to break up.
- close an educational institution for holidays
E.g. All the children in Romania broke up for the summer holidays on 15th June.
- to break something into pieces
E.g. She broke up the bar of chocolate and gave each one of her friends a small piece.
- become inaudible over the telephone because of interference
E.g. I tried to talk to her on the phone but I couldn’t hear her because she was breaking up.
brush up
- to refresh one’s knowledge or memory of a subject
E.g. Mary took an online course to brush up her English before she visited London.
blow up
- to explode
E.g. I wonder what would happen if a nuclear bomb blew up in space.
- to start suddenly
E.g. The concert was cancelled because a terrifying storm blew up.
- to inflate, to fill with air
E.g. George was out of breath after he had blown up all his daughter’s balloons.
show up
- to attend something or to arrive somewhere
E.g. Make sure you are not going to show up late at our first date!
- make someone feel embarrassed or ashamed
E.g. I was upset because he was always showing me up in front of my classmates.
Sper că postarea mea v-a fost de folos. 🙂 Pentru meditații la engleza nu ezitați să mă contactați pe Skype la: meditatii-engleza!
