Phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs
Traditional English grammar sees phrasal verbs as combinations of verbs with adverbs or prepositions. Such combinations form stand-alone semantic units. Pretty much like Russian verbs, when they have prefixes. There’s an important thing though: unlike Russian verbs used with prepositions, you can’t guess their meaning from the verb and preposition/adverb meaning. There’s plenty of examples out there: turn up – появиться, take after (a parent)
– быть похожим (на кого-то из родителей), run into (somebody/something) – столкнуться (с кем-то/чем-то).
Beware though, not any verb with a preposition is a phrasal verb. A good example would be :
| Phrasal verbs | Verbs with prepositions | |||
| turn up – явиться, появиться, прийти turn down – отклонить, отказать, “завернуть” | turn left – повернуть налево turn right – повернуть направо |