English Grammar - All about phrasal verbs!

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Diesel and other, uh, Diesel's and other stores, there are 400 of them worldwide, so hey, having

trouble keeping up?

Hi, it's James.

I want to talk to you about a phrasal verb, keep up.

Well, there are two words for that, so let's start at the beginning.

What the hell is a phrasal verb, right?

Now a phrasal verb is a two or three word verb.

For an example, pick up, right, pick up.

I like pick up because it has a couple of meanings, number one, you can pick something

If you get really lucky, you can pick up a chick, pick up a girl, that is, pick up.

So when we talk about pick up, I gave you one, right, which is to move something.

The other one is to make moves, okay, you like that one?

Make moves on someone, alright?

So we use this to act as a verb by putting two things together.

One is a verb, an actual verb, and the other is a preposition, okay?

And by putting this verb and the preposition together, what we do is we create a new life

I'm getting crazy here, but this is basically what a phrasal verb is, okay?

So now that we've done what basically is, what I want to do is work on a unique one,

one I like a lot, and we're going to do keep up.

Now what I want to do is teach you a certain way of looking at it, so as we look at keep

up, I'm actually going to be teaching you how to deal with phrasal verbs that deal with

the preposition up, okay?

I'm using keep as an example so we can look at the idea of what a verb means, okay, and

then how we modify the verb with a preposition.

Well, let's get started, shall we, all right, where's my friend and buddy and companion?

We've got Mr. E. We need Mr. E, okay?

For those of you who don't know Mr. E, it's Ezekiel, okay, with his beer.

Cerveza if you're Spanish, okay?

Anyway, try keep up.

So we're going to look at keep up.

Now keep up has a couple of meanings.

See I'm all over the place here.

Can you keep up?

There we go, there we go, all right.

So I feel like I'm on a cooking show.

All right, so we've got two parts, right?

We've got this part, we've got this part, one, two.

We've got the verb, okay, and we've got the preposition.

How do we get this?

Now, look, once we do this, we're going to do this.

If you come down, I'm going to do meanings.

You're going to find out this is going to have several meanings.

Number one, keep up means to continue, continue to do something, maintain.

Continue or we can say maintain.

Another one to be keep up could be position.

Another is to increase your speed, to be the same as someone else.

So to increase, to be or join, sorry, join somebody else.

In this case, S.B. equals somebody, okay?

All right, so here's three possible things to keep up meaning.

So I can give you a sentence.

Let's say number one, my boss said keep up the good work.

Now, in this case, keep up means continue.

Keep doing that good work.

Now, the next one, we can talk about, sorry, let's do number three here.

If so, continue.

Okay, I couldn't keep up with her in bed because she was moving the bed,

or she was doing something in the bed faster than I was, okay?

Ezekiel is not looking happy right now.

Ezekiel gave me this.

Okay, so keep up.

So in this case, I had to increase my speed, but I wasn't able to do so.

So here are just two examples where we use keep up to maintain and keep up

But how do we get these ideas?

Well, what I want to do is I want to show you where it comes from because

all of these, in a way, have something with keeping up, so they join somebody

Continue, position.

There's a similarity.

And that similarity comes from the joining of this and this.

So let's break it down and look at meanings.

What are we going to do here?

So, with verb, keep means to what?

Well, one of the means for keep is to hold on to something.

You hold on to something.

And this is in your possession.

That's number one.

Hold on to something in your possession.

To hold on to something for a period of time.

So when I keep it, I want to hold it for a period of time, you know, like

10 minutes, 20 minutes, or 30 minutes.

Kept me up all night.

So we can make a story out of this.

Remember we talked about position, continue and increase?

We can start off with my girlfriend said keep up the good work.

I couldn't keep up with her in bed, but she kept me up all night.

Anyway, back to work.

So we're going to hold on to something.

Now another one we can talk on is to hold on for some time.

The other thing is to hold place.

So in this case, funny, this verb means to hold on to something, a noun for

The next one is to hold on to time.

Another one, place or position.

So these are the three things.

So what did I say?

Time, remember?

Place, right here.

And possession, hold.

All three are here.

And if we look, it kind of matches up here.

What about preposition?

What does the preposition up mean?

Well, if you're going to excuse me for a second, I'm going to get rid of

Don't cry for me, Argentina.

The truth is I never left you.

Because I know you wrote it down in your book, right?

Because you're a smart student.

So what does the preposition mean?

If the verb means this, what does the preposition mean?

Well, the preposition up has five, count them, five different meanings.

So let's do it.

Actually, you know what?

I love television.

Let's do it like that.

Now, approach means come closer.

You want me to approach?

Number four means to stop or end something.

Improve something.

If you fix something up, you improve it, right?

See, the people in this story, if they're not careful, they will increase the population.

And number one, number one meaning for up.

Movement or direction.

So, if we look at three of the most useful, by the way, there's like eight for the verb

keep, so don't think that this is it.

This is just a small, a small tasting, you might say, a small sampling.

With these three plus these five, when we put them together, it helps us to find out

when we see sentences like this, what they mean.

For instance, keep up the good work.

Well, hold a place or position, keep up the time.

So, in this case, good work.

So, what we want to do is approach, come closer, or we can say direction.

We use these two ideas for this, to continue, right?

So, if you move and hold your place, you're going to continue or keep.

Now, I couldn't keep up with her.

Well, we've got to keep up with her.

What did that mean?

We talked about increase, right?

So, we look at increased speed, okay?

So, we couldn't hold those, so she has to increase in order to hold your place.

What about number three?

She kept me up all night.

Well, to keep you up all night means you cannot sleep, so she made you hold your position.

I'm sorry, hold the place, right?

She wouldn't let you go.

Direction makes you stay up.

We sleep, we go to sleep, we lay down, right?

You stayed up all night or kept up all night, you stayed like this.

Alright, got it?

So, when we look at this now, we've looked at how we can use the verb and its meanings,

plus the general meanings for the preposition, okay?

When we do this, this is the general meaning for the preposition "up", okay?

So, right here, verb, general meaning for the preposition, and with that, we can actually figure out what sub-sentences mean.

So, let's have a little bit of fun here, because now I know what you mean and you know what they are, alright?

I'm going to erase the board.

I'm going to put a couple sentences up, and I want you to figure out what "keep up" means here.

Try to use this plus this to get the right answer.

I love that sound.

Alright, so, we're going to have "keep up".

Try to figure it out.

That's one sentence.

So, when we look at these, I want you to look at the "keep up".

What ideas come with this?

Take a second and think.

Now, let's take a look.

I like to keep up with world events, so I read the newspaper.

I like to keep up.

Well, in other words, I want to hold my place, because if I don't keep up, I'll lose my place.

I will lose understanding.

Now, is it direction, increase, improve, stop, end, or approach?

Well, you're looking at either number five or number one.

I have to move by reading, right, to keep my place and knowledge.

It's not an increase in knowledge, it's to keep where you are.

It's not an improvement, it's to maintain.

So, we can use this and this, plus this, to get the idea of "maintain" or "continue".

What about the second one?

She was kept up all night by the loud noise.

Well, you're trying to sleep, and bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

So, you're here.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

So, you're going to stand up, right?

You're going to keep up.

So, in this case, "kept up" is position, right?

Once it gets placed.

But, in this case, we're looking at movement, keeping you up.

So, instead of this one, where we said this is "continue", right?

We said this one was "continue".

Remember the three we put on the board?

In this one, we're talking about position.

Somebody has made you not able to sleep by keeping you up all night.

We looked at phrasal verbs with "up", and especially starting the other verb, "keep".

Now, I've given you three basic meanings for "keep".

Five basic meanings for this preposition.

So, you can see how it can change.

Even though we have almost the exact same sentence, the meanings can change drastically.

If you can keep these five things in your mind, you can do almost like a hundred different phrasal verbs.

That's the applause machine.

Ezekiel's too cheap to actually get a real audience, so this is "yay" me.

So, you can probably do a hundred different phrasal verbs that you've never seen before

with "keep it up" and go, "It means this."

"It means this."

"It means this."

I've got to go and keep up with some other stuff.

Hope I haven't kept you up all night.

So, remember, verb can be used for hold on to something, hold on for time, hold on to place.

Preposition can be for movement of direction, to increase, to improve, to stop or end, or approach.

Glad you were able to keep up with me.

See you in the next lesson, but before I go, I've got to give you the public announcement,

so to speak, or Mr. E will help me.

What is it, Mr. E?

What do we need to tell them?

So they can keep up with the grammar that's being given at our website.

Well, they need to go to where, Mr. E?

W, w, w.

He's been drinking.

He's a worm, for God's sakes.

Where you'll find myself and some other teachers who will be happy to teach you phrasal verbs

and other salacious topics.

Did I say salacious?

Check it out in our vocabulary section.

Have a good one.

Have a good one.