Phrasal Verbs 1: Everyday Life
Learn 20 everyday B1 phrasal verbs - tidy up, get rid of, drop off, lie in, use up - and the four types, including which ones can split.
Phrasal verbs are not a vocabulary problem. They are a grammar problem wearing a vocabulary costume. Knowing that throw away means discard is easy; knowing that you must say throw it away and never throw away it is what separates B1 from A2. This lesson gives you twenty everyday ones and, more importantly, the four patterns they follow – so that the next two hundred you meet are not twenty separate problems.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/laɪ ˈɪn/
To stay in bed later than usual. British. No object.
On Sundays I lie in until nine.
/steɪ ˈʌp/
To go to bed later than usual. No object.
I stay up too late and blame the television.
/ˌkæri ˈɒn/
To continue doing something. No object.
Just carry on – do not start again.
/ˌtaɪdi ˈʌp/
To make a place neat. Separable.
I will tidy up before they arrive.
/wɒʃ ˈʌp/
To wash the plates and cups. British. Separable.
Somebody has to wash up eventually.
/θrəʊ əˈweɪ/
To put something in the bin. Separable.
Do not throw that away – it still works.
/pʊt əˈweɪ/
To return something to where it belongs. Separable.
Put the tools away when you finish.
/ɡɪv əˈweɪ/
To give something for free. Separable.
We gave away four bags of clothes.
/ɡet ˈrɪd əv/
To remove something you no longer want. Never splits.
I could not get rid of the sofa.
/juːz ˈʌp/
To finish a supply completely. Separable.
They had used up all the milk.
/pɪk ˈʌp/
To collect somebody or something. Separable.
I pick her up at half four.
/drɒp ˈɒf/
To take somebody somewhere and leave them. Separable.
I can drop you off on the way.
/hæŋ ˈʌp/
To end a phone call. Separable.
She hung up before I finished.
/kɔːl ˈbæk/
To telephone somebody again. Separable.
I will call you back in ten minutes.
/drɒp ˈɪn/
To visit somebody without arranging it first.
Neighbours drop in without warning here.
/ɡet ˈɒn/
To board a bus, train or plane. Never splits.
Get on at the front and pay the driver.
/ɡet ˈɒf/
To leave a bus, train or plane. Never splits.
Get off two stops after the bridge.
/set ˈʌp/
To prepare or arrange something new. Separable.
It took an hour to set up the printer.
/duː wɪˈðaʊt/
To manage without having something. Never splits.
You learn to do without a dishwasher.
/ɡet təˈɡeðə(r)/
To meet socially. No object.
We get together every August.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
A Fortnight in My Sister’s House
My sister and her husband went to Portugal for two weeks in August and I agreed to stay in their house, feed the cat, and water a garden I did not understand.
I had imagined it as a holiday. Free house, no rent, a garden. I would lie in, read, and generally carry on with my life in a nicer building.
What I had not properly registered is that a house with two children in it does not stop being a house with two children in it when the children leave. It just stops having anybody who knows where things go.
The first evening I could not find a single clean plate. I opened the dishwasher and it was full of clean things nobody had put away, and the sink was full of dirty things, and I stood there for a moment understanding my sister better than I had in years.
I did wash up, eventually, by hand, because I could not work out the dishwasher settings and was too proud to ring Portugal about it.
The cat had a routine and I did not know it. She wanted feeding at half five in the morning and expressed this by walking on my face. By day three I had stopped trying to stay up late, because the negotiation at dawn was not one I could win.
On the Wednesday I decided to tidy up. This was a mistake in the way that all such decisions are a mistake – I had intended one room and I ended up with four bin bags in the hall.
It is remarkably hard to throw away other people’s things. Every object had a question attached. Is this broken or is it waiting to be mended? Does a nine-year-old still want this? I would pick something up, hold it, and then put it away again exactly where it had been, having achieved nothing.
In the end I did give away two bags of clothes to the charity shop on the corner, having photographed everything first like a man preparing a legal defence. I could not get rid of the broken lamp in the hall. It is still there. I have never asked about it.
The school run does not stop for August, it turns out, because there was a holiday club. I had to pick up my nephew at four and drop my niece off at a friend’s at six, in a car whose mirrors I never once adjusted correctly.
Twice I got the times wrong. Both times my nephew rang me from the club and I said I would call him back and then simply drove there instead. The second time he decided to hang up on me before I had finished the sentence, which he found funnier than I did.
By the second week I had a system, which is a generous word for what it was. I would get on the bus into town on Tuesdays because parking is impossible, and get off at the library, and buy the specific bread my niece will eat and no other.
We had used up all the milk by Thursday of the first week and I learned to do without it in tea, which I disliked for four days and then stopped noticing.
The neighbour, Bernadette, would drop in most afternoons without any warning at all, ostensibly about the bins, and stay forty minutes. I found this extremely irritating for a week and then looked forward to it, which is a fact about myself I have chosen not to examine.
On the last Saturday I tried to set up the new router that had arrived, failed completely, and left it in the box with an apologetic note.
My sister came back brown and calm and found her house cleaner than she left it and one lamp still broken, and she said the thing that families say, which was “you did not have to do all that”, meaning thank you.
We get together properly about three times a year. It is not enough. I understood something in that fortnight about how much work is happening in a house I visit for lunch, and I have never once since said the sentence “what do you do all day”, which I am ashamed to say I had said before.
The cat still hates me. That is simply the arrangement.
Every phrasal verb below replaces a formal or vague verb. Using them is not casual – it is what natural English sounds like, and examiners reward it.
| I will discard it. | I will throw it away. |
| Return it to its place. | Put it away. |
| I want to remove this old sofa. | I want to get rid of it. |
| We finished all the milk. | We used up the milk. |
| I will collect you at four. | I will pick you up at four. |
| I will take you there and leave you. | I will drop you off. |
| She ended the call suddenly. | She hung up. |
| She visited without arranging it. | She dropped in. |
| We managed without a car. | We did without a car. |
| We meet socially each August. | We get together each August. |
There are four types, and the type decides the word order. Learn the type with the verb, exactly as you would learn the gender of a noun in another language.
1. No object. Nothing can come after it. lie in, stay up, carry on, get together, drop in
✓ We got together in August. ✗ We got together the family.
2. Separable. The object can go in the middle or at the end – but a pronoun must go in the middle. throw away, put away, give away, use up, pick up, drop off, hang up, call back, tidy up, set up, wash up
✓ Throw away the box. ✓ Throw the box away. ✓ Throw it away.
✗ Throw away it.
That last line is the single most common phrasal-verb error at B1. If the object is it, them, him, her, me, us, you, it goes in the middle. There are no exceptions.
3. Inseparable. The verb and particle never come apart, even for a pronoun. get on, get off, do without, get rid of, look after
✓ Get on it. ✗ Get it on. (a different meaning entirely)
✓ I cannot do without it. ✗ I cannot do it without.
4. Three-part. Verb + two particles, always inseparable, object at the end. get rid of, put up with, look forward to, get on with, come up with
✓ I got rid of it. ✗ I got it rid of.
How to learn them without going mad. Do not learn phrasal verbs in lists by particle – all the verbs with UP is the least useful grouping possible, because up means eleven different things. Learn them in small topic groups, in a sentence, with the type marked. One good sentence you can repeat beats ten definitions you cannot.
Register. Phrasal verbs are neutral, not slang. In very formal writing a single-word equivalent is often preferred – discard rather than throw away, collect rather than pick up, continue rather than carry on – but in speaking, and in ordinary writing, the phrasal verb is the natural choice and the single word can sound stiff.
No object: lie in, stay up, carry on, get together, drop in.
Separable: tidy up, wash up, throw away, put away, give away, use up, pick up, drop off, hang up, call back, set up.
Inseparable: get on, get off, do without.
Three-part: get rid of.
The one rule to memorise: with a separable phrasal verb, a pronoun goes in the middle. Throw it away, never throw away it.
Exam task: describe your Saturday using six of these. At least two must have a pronoun object, placed correctly.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
Want feedback from a real tutor on your reading, writing and speaking?
Book a Free Consultation