9 Impossible Phrasal Verbs…EXPLAINED!

Explore these nine commonly used, yet slightly tricky, phrasal verbs in English. I’ll guide you through each word to enhance your vocabulary and speaking fluency.

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Video Transcript:

Phrasal verbs are one of the trickiest parts of English. The meanings can be confusing and there are so many of them that seem similar but don’t have definitions that are related. Today, we’ll learn nine essential phrasal verbs and I’ll give you plenty of examples from real life so you exactly how to use them to express yourself in English effectively.  

First, pass off. To pass something off as something else. This means to try to make people believe that something is different. For example: It’s a fake Gucci bag but she tries to pass it off as real. 

I mean, that’s kind of what music is for. That’s the thing that’s valuable about it. There’s such a thing as, like stealing culture or whatever and trying to pass something off as your own.  

Trying to pass something off as your own. 

Can these signs be mistaken for something else ever? Like slurred speech, could you be having a major migraine. Do people sometimes maybe pass it off as something else?  

People sometimes maybe pass it off as something else? 

And that’s simply because his body of work is so massive. It’s plausible therefore to steal a let’s say, a minor Rembrandt, and pass it of as something that was here to for unknown.  

and pass it of as something that was here to for unknown. 

What really makes us grimace when it comes to the cereal is how it’s marketed. The company basically tries to pass it off as something healthy when really, you’re just eating chocolate infused carbs brimming with sugar.  

The company basically tries to pass it off as something healthy 

So if you pass something off as something else, you try to make people believe something about it that isn’t true.  

She stole his ideas and passed them off as her own in the meeting. 

She tried to make people believe they were hers.  

Hang tight. This simply means ‘to wait’, to wait to do something.  

The other day, I was on a flight. It was delayed and the pilot said, “Were just going to have to hang tight until we get more information. We didn’t know when the mechanic was going to be able to fix the plane, we just have to wait.  

Reboot. Try rebooting the system. Yeah, I’ll hang tight.  

Success? Bravo.  

Yeah, I’ll hang tight. 

Now, what I want to do is ask you to hang tight until the end and I’m going to tell you what we’re going to cover next month.  

what I want to do is ask you to hang tight.  

And to those of you who have decided so, I invite you to just hang tight with me for a second, because I think I have a little bit of explaining to do.  

Hang tight with me for a second.  

After all of our speakers have given their presentation, you will have a chance to uh, engage in some questions and answers with them so uh, just hang tight because I know you have lots of questions by now.  

Just hang tight.  

So, really quickly, we’re going to take a break but it’s not a real break as we don’t want you to leave the room, so if you all would hang tight here for about five minutes, we are going to clear the stage.  

so if you all would hang tight here for about five minutes.  

Hang tight. To wait.  

Water down. We often think of this with drinks, When the ice melts, it waters down the whiskey. Makes it less potent. But we use it with things that have nothing to do with liquids as well. This phrasal verb means to reduce the force or effectiveness of something, to make something less strong or meaningful.  

And so you’ve got a really difficult situation here where if you’re going to get any more Republicans on board, you might need to water down a bill that Democrats already believe isn’t strong enough.  

You might need to water down.  

All items that we put out, I mean we did this conjunction with illustrative math, one of our authors of the common core, we have a lot of the top math experts in the world looking at it, it’s a rigorous level, we don’t water down the content. The easiest wat to the students even more engaged.  

We don’t water down the content.  

They will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it.  

They will not be able to water down your coverage 

The more I wrote, the more I engage in civic duty, the more I held conversations with critically minded people that challenge the status quo, the more I understood the way we water down and sugarcoat our history.  

the way we water down and sugarcoat our history. 

I love that last example, water down and sugarcoat our history. Water down. You know this means to make less strong or meaningful. We take the force out of what we can learn from our history.  

Sugarcoat means to try to make something that is undesirable seem better. The business is almost bankrupt and there’s no way to sugarcoat it.  

Next, ‘tag along’. This means to go somewhere with a person or a group of people. Hey Rachel, we’re going out for ice cream, do you want to tag along?  

It can also mean something that sometimes goes with something else like in the phrase ‘Why does the anxiety seem to tag along with depression? 

In Zimbabwe, in Senegal, in Nigeria, Zaire and other countries we visited, Barbara was talking to adult literacy groups. And frequently, I would tag along with her. 

How come so often we hear depression and anxiety. Why does anxiety seem to tag along with depression? Because it sounds like the opposite of depression.  

Seem to tag along with depression  

Then the focus of treatment is on the other disorder because you can kind of think of depersonalization and derealization in this context is like tag along symptoms of these disorders.  

tag along symptoms of these disorders.  

Even when some of us wish we could chip in.  

There’s some tag along like me who aren’t really in the family but we show up.  

There’s some tag along like me.  

Aunts and uncles, and kids and kids’ friends, 

Garner State Park!  

The Fuentes were nice enough to let me tag along with them and follow them with a camera for 5 days. 

to let me tag along with them.  

This week, we tag along with nature photographer Mark Harlow as he gives us an in-depth look behind some of his more famous photographs. 

This week, we tag along with nature photographer Mark Harlow– 

I’m going for quick walk. Do you want to tag along?  

Suck it up. This means to accept an unpleasant fact or situation. For example, ‘I know you don’t like working overtime but you need to suck it up because the family needs the extra money.  

And we need more athletes to understand how important it is to do what we can prevent injuries and to admit them when they do happen. So right we have to change a culture that says you suck it up.  

we have to change a culture that says you suck it up. 

I’m hitting the snooze button, I’m not showing up on time because I don’t want to be around them. I got to suck it up and I got to be there.  

I got to suck it up and I got to be there. 

Every group of female friends has the funny one, the one you go to when you need a good cry, the one who tells you to suck it up when you’ve had a hard day.  

The one who tells you to suck it up.  

Did the school do anything about it?  

Not really, no, you know this was in the 50s and early 60s and now– 

You’re supposed to suck it up.  

You suck it up, you’re on your own uh, kid.  

You’re supposed to suck it up.  

You suck it up, you’re on your own.  

I could either sit and cry every single day or I could suck it up and just work really, really hard.   

or I could suck it up.  

Next, weight in. This has nothing to do with weighing something like on a scale. It means to give an opinion or your ideas in a discussion or argument. Let’s say you’re discussing something at a meeting and your coworker isn’t participating, but you want to know what he thinks. You could say: Hey Rachel, do you want to weigh it?  

So we actually have a little bit less than five minutes left, a lot of good input from everyone, so I’ll just ask one question that everybody can weigh it on. That is uhm,   

That everybody can weigh in on.  

And I remember I was watching television with my husband at night, and I was staring at my phone, just being like, Did more people weigh in like what’s happening? 

Did more people weigh in? Like what’s happening? 

You maybe speaking to the legislature. Take a look at this, Perhaps you ought to weigh in.  

Perhaps you ought to weigh in. 

I don’t know. But actually, what we know about skull morphology is that it’s highly variable and there is uh, many environmental factors that weigh in.    

and there is uh, many environmental factors that weigh in.    

So I’d like to and to that point, I’d like you all to weigh in on this.  

I’d like you all to weigh in on this. 

Drone on. You know what a drone is, right? A small device that flies that you can control remotely. Unrelated to drone on. This means to talk for a long time about one topic, really too long, often it implies that what you’re saying isn’t very interesting. I wanted to make a video on a hundred phrasal verbs, but I didn’t want to drone on so I cut it to nine.  

Thank you very much for the opportunity to let me drone on here a bit so– 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to let me drone on here a bit. 

Make sure you still hook them right from the beginning, so in other words, you almost want to write kind of a short form copy ad at the beginning anyways, and build on it as you proceed. This is not the place to drone on and on and really bore them and never hook their attention and you ads not going to work no matter how long it is.  

This is not the place to drone on and on and really bore them.  

Now, if the speaker seems to drone on and on, and on, and on and on, it’s time for a visualization technique.  

“Now, if the speaker seems to drone on and on, and on” 

And education isn’t just about kids. I mean many you right now in the room have jobs and like many children, you’re asked to sit all day and watch or listen to somebody drone on right? Stare at the computer screen all day but    

and watch or listen to somebody drone on right? 

Boil down to. This phrasal verb means to find the most essential or basic point of something. For example: There are lots of things I think about when planning a vacation but really, what it all boils down to is money.  

My man Josh Pais says this in a slightly different way. He says, “If you listen to you thoughts in your mind, they all boil down to the same thing: I suck.  

all boil down to the same thing: I suck.  

Arrived at the consensus that happiness as complicated and multicultural as it is, can really boil down to a few things, one,  

boil down to a few things, 

We do not get an answer that we should get if the laws of Statistics as they boil down to this question being a yes no question.  

The laws of Statistics as they boil down to this question being a yes no question.  

Basically, many of the tips and tricks over how to save money in the long term boil down to having more money to spend in the short term.   

boil down to having more money to spend in the short term.   

Just to get back to your question, the brain drain uh, question, yeah, I think it really boils down to a lot of people, it doesn’t really matter where they’re going to live as long as they can afford a house.  

yeah, I think it really boils down to–  

The last one is my favorite one. The word ‘Glom’. It’s not too common but I just like saying it. Glom onto. It means officially to take something for your own use but I find we use it more to mean to attach to something. Like, I can’t come up with a good idea for this assignment. Can I glom on to you and we’ll do it together?  

So then you’ll introduce millions of tiny particles so that water droplets can glom onto them and grow and grow until they’re heavy enough to fall as rain or snow. 

water droplets can glom onto them and grow and grow.  

So, in a sentence like Kimmy bribed the therapist with a drink, that prepositional phrase, with a drink can either glom onto the therapist or reach up into the verb phrase  

with a drink can either glom onto the therapist. 

Yeah, you guys are going. 

No. Go get the car and leave.  

No, we’re coming with.  

Don’t glom onto this.  

Hi, you guys.  

Don’t glom onto this. 

Alright, here’s something. What if we do the show together?  

What? Oh, I’m not going to let you glom onto my new hit show.  

43 views.  

Oh, I’m not going to let you glom onto my new hit show. 

Jerry’s lonely, Farah’s lonely, they both glom onto us. We set them up, they’ll both glom onto each other and then she can bang his drum.  

They both glom onto us.  

Nine phrasal verbs and here’s a challenge. Take one of them and write a sentence in the comments using it. Keep your learning now with this video and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on so you never miss a video. I love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.  

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