When I teach my students at EF English Live, I offer a lot of help with phrasal verbs, which is one of the trickier aspects of English grammar. So that you can quickly have access to some common ones, I have made a list of them.
Remember, a phrasal verb has two or three parts. It always has a verb, and this verb is followed by a preposition or an adverb. Here is a list of some common phrasal verbs – remember to change the verb to match your tense.
Phrasal verb | Meaning | Example |
| Call someone back | To return someone’s call | I will call her back. |
| Cheer up | To make someone happier | She cheered up after hearing the good news. |
| Get over | End or find a solution to | It took me a long time to get over the flu. |
| Hang on | Wait for a short time (informal) | Could you hang on for a second? |
| Look for | To try and find something | I am looking for my keys. |
| Run into | To meet unexpectedly | I ran into Steve at the store today. |
| Run into | To accidentally bump into someone/something | I was walking to the office and ran into the bookshelf. |
| Run out of | Have none left of something | We ran out of money. |
| Switch on/off | Turn something on or off | I switched on the television. |
So here are some phrasal verbs to help you get started and hopefully help you to talk more like a native English speaker. Just remember to change the verb so that it is in the correct tense for your sentence!
