A mouthful of English

A phrasal verb , like make up or give away , is an idiomatic phrase consisting of a verb and a particle. The words in such phrases usually have different meanings in other contexts, but when they form a phrasal verb they mean something together. If you make up a story, you invent it; if you give a secret away , you reveal it. Children often take after their parents. There are lots of phrasal verbs in English. Every day we wake up and get up . We put on and take off coats, shoes or glasses. We switch on lights, the TV, and our mobile phones – and then we switch them off . The two parts of some phrasal verbs may appear together or separated in a sentence: Please turn off your mobile phone. Please turn your mobile phone off . But sometimes they have to be separated – when the object of the verb is a pronoun: You can’t use your mobile phone here. Please turn it off . Like many other words, some phrasal verbs have more than one meaning. If you pick up a l...

‘I don’t know if I’m coming or going !’ Go means ‘move from one place to another.’ We go to work , we go to bed , and we go on holiday . Come means, basically, ‘move towards the speaker.’ Besides, both go and come – and other verbs of movement – often combine with words like in , out , up , or down , to refer to different directions. When you enter a room, you may be coming in o going in , depending on the speaker’s point of view. In other words, depending on where the speaker is. He’s going into the head teacher’s office. The choice between go in and come in, come up and come down, will depend on the context, and the speaker’s position is key. Come may also mean ‘move with the speaker or in the direction of the listener ’.   That’s why we say ‘Coming!’ when somebody is waiting for us, to let them know that we’re on our way – when the doorbell rings, for instance.