This is Jack Farm to Fluency, and this is the latest episode
of the To Fluency podcast. It is great to have you here.
Now today we're going to learn an area of English that is my
favorite area to learn, or one of them in a foreign language.
So when I was studying Spanish, I used to love learning these
types of phrases, and I'll tell you what they are.
They're called prepositional verbs, prepositional verbs.
And this is where you have a verb, then a preposition, and
then an object. For example, I love listening to
music. Listen to music, a verb,
preposition and then an object. And I'm sure when you've been
studying English and trying to speak English, you're thinking
about, OK, what preposition do I use after this verb?
And for example, in Spanish, you don't use a preposition after
listen escucha musica, excuse me for my the way I speak Spanish,
but you don't use a preposition. And then in if different
languages, you might use a preposition, but it's a
different 1. So what you can do in this
lesson is listen to the phrases and then go to the description
and learn the phrases because they're going to be really
useful for you. We're going to go through quite
a few today. I'm going to try and make the
examples entertaining and relevant and fun.
But the key here is to learn the sentences that I'm going to give
you and then try to use them in similar ways.
So I've talked about how you can practice your writing, and you
can practice your writing by taking these types of
prepositional verbs and creating sentences that are relevant to
your life. Because a big mistake I find is
that when a student learns new vocabulary like a verb, they try
to use it in ways that that just don't make sense.
And the way it makes sense is if you learn the verb plus the
preposition plus the object. And these are just like
collocations and collocations are king, the words that go
together naturally. So you can learn these in a
natural way by listening to this lesson.
Let's start with believe in, to believe in something.
And this means to have faith in the existence or truth of
something. And the best example here is a
question, do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts? Which means do you believe that
ghosts exist? OK, so to believe in something
is to have faith in the existence.
Now, it can also mean to have an opinion that something is right
or desirable. For example, I don't believe in
the way things are being censored at the moment.
So I don't believe in the way that things are being censored
at the moment, which means I don't have the opinion.
I don't agree with this. I think it is wrong.
The next one is depend on, depend on.
I hear a lot of people here using depend in, but no, it's
depend on. And again, it's a great one to
know. I use it all the time.
For example, if somebody says will I become fluent in English
this year, I say it depends on what you do with your time and
how much time you spend learning English.
So it depends on different factors.
You might hear parents say something like how much TV time
you get later will depend on how much you tidy today.
Or whether we go on vacation this year will depend on flight
restrictions. So whether we go on vacation
this year will depend on flight restrictions.
The next one is look at look at this, look at this, look at
this. And we use this to bring
someone's attention to or, or their eyes to something.
The other day it was raining, but the sun was also out.
So I went outside and I said to Kate, quick look at the rainbow.
Look at the rainbow. So pay attention or use your
eyes to see the rainbow. Quick.
Look at the rainbow outside. Or you might say that guy's
looking at me in a weird way. That guy is looking at me in a
weird way. Look at can also be used when
thinking about something carefully.
For example, I'll take a look at what you sent me and make a
decision later. So I'll take a look at what you
sent me and make a decision later.
Another example, could you take a quick look at my new Lesson
plan? Could you take a quick look at
my new Lesson plan #4 is apologise to to apologise to
someone? For example, can you apologise
to your sister? You shouldn't have said that.
Could you apologise to your sister?
And my boss finally apologised to me for shouting the other
day. My boss finally apologised to me
for shouting the other day. Now here I am stressing the word
finally because it's taking him a long time to do it.
My boss finally apologised to me for shouting the other day #5 is
to agree with, for example, I don't agree with the thing you
said. I don't agree with a thing you
said. Now, in a recent podcast
episode, I talked about the example of I couldn't disagree
more or I couldn't agree more. But in this case, we're using
the simple version. Agree with someone.
I don't agree with a thing you said, or we all know that person
who never agrees with what we do and is always critical.
You can say, can you just agree with me for once in your life?
Can you just agree with me for once in your life?
And I don't say this very often, but I agree with the Prime
Minister. He's right.
I agree with the Prime Minister, he's right.
The next one is deal with something.
And this can have various definitions, but we're going to
focus on to take action to do something or to handle a
situation. For example, I can't deal with
everything right now. I can't deal with everything
right now. Things are overwhelming.
I have too much stuff going on. I have to do this, I have to do
that. I can't deal with everything
right now, which means I can't handle the situation.
Everything is too overwhelming for me and I can't take action
on everything. Another example is he's dealing
with his new school really well, which means he's adapting to the
new school really well. Sometimes when somebody starts a
new school, it's difficult for them.
They don't know what to do. They don't have any friends,
they don't know their teachers. But in this example, he's
dealing with his new school really well.
And in the workplace, you might hear, yes, I'll deal with it in
the morning. Don't worry boss, I'll deal with
it in the morning, which means you'll do what you need to do in
the morning. The next one is 1 that I
actually used yesterday because we were at a pool party and I
asked my children, did you thank them for the birthday party?
So to thank somebody for something, did you thank grandma
for the present? I just want to thank you for
being here on this channel. I just want to thank you for
listening to my podcast #8 is suffer from to suffer from
something. And this means to have some kind
of problem with something. Often it can be medical too.
So for example, I'm suffering from a lack of sleep at the
moment. I have a problem because I'm not
sleeping very well. I'm suffering from a lack of
sleep at the moment and I'm suffering from a little lack of
self esteem right now. Now self esteem is similar to
confidence. I'm suffering from a little lack
of self esteem right now. The next one is smell of to
smell of something. Now sometimes my wife comes home
and says this house smells of sardines or this hell house
smells of liver because I like to eat beef liver so to smell of
something. Another example is this car
smells of wet dog. So if you've had a wet dog in
your car, there's a very specific smell.
So this car smells of wet dog #10 is laugh at, laugh at.
You're laughing at me. Do I amuse you?
There's a great scene in Goodfellas which you might know
where someone's laughing at someone and he says, do I amuse
you? But you're laughing at me.
And you can also just ask the question, what are you laughing
at? What are you laughing at?
So if somebody's laughing in a room, you might want to ask
them, what are you laughing at? And then this is a true story
and this might happen with you, but it's OK.
They started laughing at me when I started talking in Spanish.
We have two more to go #11 is think about to think about
something. And there's a great line here
from a Robbie Williams song who is a British singer, and it's
called Feel. I think I'll leave a link to the
song in the description. But he says I'm contemplating
thinking about thinking, which think about that for a moment.
I'm contemplating thinking about thinking.
It's a great line because it's basically saying three things.
It's like looking in various mirrors.
It's quite confusing, but maybe you understand it.
I'm contemplating thinking about thinking, But here's a more
simple example. Let us think about it for a
couple of days and get back to you.
So let us think about it for a couple of days and get back to
you. And sometimes you might just
want to ask somebody what you what you thinking about right
now? What are you thinking about
right now? And the last one is forget
about, forget about it, Forget about it, which is a New York
accent. But yeah, let's give you an
example here. Did you remember to call Mr.
Smith? Oh, no, I forgot about that.
I forgot about that. I feel terrible.
I forgot about it. I just completely forgot about
it. And then if somebody brings up
or starts talking about something in the past, you, you
haven't thought about it for a while.
You might say, oh man, I completely forgot about that
holiday. I completely forgot about that
holiday. But now you remember it.
And an example from the office is I think Susan's forgotten
about the meeting again. Susan isn't in the meeting.
You might say, I think Susan's forgotten about the meeting
again. OK, so those are our 12
prepositional verbs. Believe in, depend on, agree
with, deal with, thank for, suffer from, smell of, look at,
laugh at, think about, forget about and apologise too.
I forgot about that one. So like I said, go to the
description, look at the sentences there and think about
ways that you can learn these over the long term.
And also check out that song by Robbie Williams called Feel.
It's a good song actually. And like I said, create some of
your own sentences here that are relevant to your life.
For example, you might want to say I completely forgot about
complete the sentence. Why do people laugh at me when I
complete the sentence? I'm always thinking about
complete the sentence and use the link in the description to
the grammar checker so that it can correct any mistakes you
make. And if it works properly, it
should correct any mistakes you make with the prepositions too.
So it's a very powerful tool tool.
There's a link in the description to that.
So if you have enjoyed this episode, then please share it
with a friend. Be sure to subscribe to this
podcast too, if you haven't done so already.
And yeah, just send an episode to a friend.
Just click the link, share it, share on WhatsApp, on Facebook
and Twitter, message, message people, call them, call them and
tell them about the podcast. Speak in English as you do it to
get some practice via whichever way you want to share it.
I would be very grateful if you did that.
And again, thank you so much for being here.
It's my pleasure teaching you. And while you're here, why not
check out some more episodes? OK, bye for now.