General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 01 Topic 04.doc  LANGUAGE FOCUS 04 Phrasal verbs Phrasal verbs are very common in both formal and informal English. Julie writes: People often ask me how I got into studying monkeys. When I look back, I can think of several things that influenced me. When Julie says "how I got into studying the behaviour of gorillas", she means how she became interested in studying. When she says "when I look back", she means when she thinks about the past. Get into and look back are phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb is a verb + an adverb or a verb + a preposition. A phrasal verb has a different meaning from the base verb itself. For example, get means "to receive/obtain", but get into means "to be interested in". Phrasal verbs can be transitive (take an object) or intransitive (do not take an object). The difference between the two types is described below. Don't worry too much if you do not fully understand. The important thing is to: • take notice of phrasal verbs when you are reading. • try to guess their meanings. • look them up in your dictionary to check the meanings. Intransitive phrasal verbs (no object) Julie writes: As we grew up, we did so many things together. Grew up means "got older". Grew up is an intransitive verb. It does not take an object after the verb. Many phrasal verbs - especially verb + adverb combinations – do not take objects. (These are intransitive verbs.) verb adverb object stay up 34 QUESTLANGUAGE