Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by how many you have to learn?

Well, this is the video for you.

Welcome back to English with Catherine.

Today, I'm going to teach you 20 phrasal verbs for daily life.

You'll be happy to know that I have categorized these phrasal verbs into sections.

You'll see what I mean in a second.

Don't forget to watch to the end of the video because I have two wonderful words for you, actually.

Both of them advanced and both of them to do with this video.

Can't wait to show you.

Let's get started.

Phrasal verbs.

What are they and why do we use them?

A phrasal verb, in case you didn't know, is a verb that comes with a preposition and they come together as a pair.

So an example of a verb could be come or go or break and a preposition example could be across, up or on.

Why do we use them?

Language is an evolutionary thing.

It develops, it changes, it progresses.

The formal words have been replaced with the phrasal verb equivalent.

An example is the word participate.

Participate has been replaced with the phrasal verb take part, to take part in something.

Why have we done this?

Well, it's a process of making our spoken English less formal, more natural, I suppose, so that we can all use it together and there's not so much division between people using the language.

That's a whole other subject though, which is very interesting.

So now guys, let me show you the 20 phrasal verbs that I use every day and that are essential to learn in your phrasal verb journey.

Temperature.

To cool down.

To cool down.

When we want to become less hot or less warm, we need to use this phrasal verb.

Oh, I really need to cool down.

I'm absolutely boiling.

Recently, it's been really hot in the UK.

We've been having a bit of a heat wave.

So to cool down, I like to jump in the swimming pool.

If you're lucky enough to have a swimming pool, you can easily jump in to cool down.

Warm up.

Warm up.

Okay, here we have the opposite one.

To become warmer, we need to warm up.

In the wintertime, I like to warm up by making myself a hot cup of cocoa or putting on a really chunky jumper.

But whether you need to cool down or warm up, you need these phrasal verbs.

Socialising.

Something we do every day.

Meet up.

Meet up.

This phrasal verb is about meeting a friend or a family member in a social setting.

On the weekend, I like meeting up with a friend for brunch or coffee.

If we're making a suggestion, we might say, Let's meet up.

Let's meet up soon.

Let's organise to meet up soon.

Catch up.

Catch up.

So to catch up with someone is to find out what they've been doing in their life.

After a period of time where you haven't seen them much, you need to sort of find out what they've been up to.

We often say, Let's catch up soon.

Oh, we really need to catch up.

It's been too long, we need to catch up.

Miss out.

Miss out.

Do you know what this one means?

You know that feeling when you can't go to a social event for some reason, maybe due to illness, or it just clashes with another thing that you're doing, and you have this feeling where you're sad because you're not at that event.

What we say is, I'm missing out.

I'm sad that I'm missing out.

Oh, I missed out on some fun yesterday, for example.

Work.

We all work, right?

So we need some phrasal verbs for work.

Zoom in or zoom out.

This means to make something bigger on the screen, to enlarge something.

You might know this already because it's so part of daily life.

I mean, I'm always zooming in on things to make them bigger.

If I can't see something clearly on the screen, I'm likely to zoom in.

Sometimes we say, Let me just zoom in a second.

I can't see the image clearly.

Or let me just zoom out.

If you're giving a presentation at work and you have a PowerPoint, sometimes we need these phrasal verbs.

Scroll up or scroll down.

These phrasal verbs have become part of daily life with the rise of social media and everyone working from home on a screen.

I'm sure you know these already, but just in case you don't, to scroll down is to move the screen down if you're looking at lots of things, like on Instagram or on Google.

And scroll up is the opposite.

Write down or jot down.

Sometimes when you're in a meeting at work, you need to just make a note.

Sometimes we say that instead to make a note is to write something down.

Jot down is actually a little bit different.

It means to write something down quickly.

So it's about the speed of making the note.

So let me just jot that down a second.

Oh, let me just write that down.

That's really important.

Relationships.

Romantic ones.

These are part of daily life as well, so we must learn some phrasal verbs for them.

Break up.

Break up.

A sad one to start with, but this is when two people separate.

And separate is the formal word that would have been used instead of break up.

Oh, they've broken up.

It's really sad.

Oh, she broke up with him yesterday.

He's absolutely devastated.

Move in.

Move in.

What do you think this one means?

After you've just met someone, you might really like them and decide that you want to live together.

But we don't often say, we lived in the same house together, or we started to live in the same flat together.

No, what we say is, I've moved in with him.

She's moved in with him.

He's moved in with her.

The relationship has been taken to the next level.

When I first met Tom, we actually went travelling for the first year.

We went all around Europe, Germany, Austria, Italy, France.

It was amazing.

And then after that, we came back to England and we moved in together.

So after a year-ish.

To fall for someone.

So fall for is your phrasal verb.

If you fall for someone, you really fall in love with them.

You decide you really like them and they have captured your heart.

She fell for him.

I fell for him after only two days.

She fell for him after a couple of weeks.

It's very common.

Lifestyle.

Here are some phrasal verbs for your daily lifestyle.

Hopefully, it's a healthy one.

Work out.

Work out.

You probably know this one, but this is to do with exercise.

How often do you work out?

That means, how often do you properly exercise to keep your body healthy?

You can say, I work out a couple of times a week.

I work out on the weekends.

I work out in the evenings.

It's up to you.

Cut down.

To cut down.

This one is about diet, what you're eating, what you're drinking.

If you have a few bad habits in your diet, you might want to cut down on something.

So we can say, I am cutting down on sugar.

I am cutting down on alcohol.

We can also use this for other bad habits that are not to do with diet.

For example, scrolling.

I need to cut down on scrolling on social media.

It's my bad habit.

So the more formal word that this phrasal verb replaced is reduce.

So you're more likely to hear cut down on something than reduce something.

It's just not something we say anymore in natural daily speech.

To eat out.

To eat out.

Now, I'm sure you can work this one out.

There's another phrasal verb, to work something out.

That's to calculate the answer to something.

This means to eat dinner or lunch in a restaurant or a cafe and not have it at home.

I tend to eat out maybe once a month.

I do actually really enjoy cooking, especially frying onions.

I find chopping and cooking actually quite therapeutic.

But sometimes I like eating out to try a new restaurant in the local town or for a special occasion.

Relaxing.

Of course, we need some phrasal verbs for calm and peace.

To lie in.

To lie in.

What do you think that means?

This is when you sleep longer in the mornings and you don't get up really early and you just give yourself some time in bed to just relax.

I tend to lie in on Sundays because that's kind of considered a rest day to me and I'm sure for many other people.

So you will often hear people saying, oh, I can't wait to lie in tomorrow or I'm going to lie in on Sunday.

I've been getting up at the crack of dawn all week.

I can't wait to lie in on the weekend.

To get up at the crack of dawn, by the way, means to get up really early, like 6am.

To chill out.

To chill out.

This one is a little bit American but is very widely used in the UK.

To chill out is to relax.

People will say, I can't wait to just chill out later.

I'm going to listen to music.

I'm going to cook a meal.

I'm just going to chill out.

Often it means do nothing or watch a film, something very peaceful.

Note that I'm blending those together.

Chill out.

Chill out.

Okay, don't have a break between those words.

Just blend them together.

To wind down.

To wind down.

This might be a bit confusing because it looks like wind and that's because they have the same spelling.

This very often happens in English, I'm afraid.

A word can often have a completely different pronunciation because it has a different meaning but it's the same word.

So to wind down is to gradually relax.

And often you might hear people saying, what do you do to wind down after a long day at work?

And what we say is, I like to wind down with a glass of wine.

I like to wind down cooking caramelising onions in a pan while listening to jazz.

That's my one.

I used to have a lava lamp and after work, I used to have this ritual of turning on the lava lamp making myself a white wine spritzer.

This was on a Friday night at the end of a long week.

And there's something about a lava lamp which is really relaxing to watch.

So it would help me gradually relax.

Because if you've had a really busy day, I'm sure you know that it's really difficult to just relax instantly.

You have to kind of slowly get there and go from one state to another.

Daily routine.

We need some phrasal verbs for our daily life.

Things that we do every day at the same time usually.

Get up.

Get up.

What time do you get up?

That means leave your bed in the morning.

I tend to get up at 7.30am if everything's going well.

That's what I like to do.

I feel like if I get up at that time, it gives me a little bit of time before I start work to fully get ready for the day and do all my little weird rituals and routines.

Including coffee and skincare.

Now wake up is a little bit different.

Wake up and get up are different.

Wake up and get up are not the same.

Get up is to actually leave your bed.

But wake up is just to open your eyes to the world.

So usually I wake up at 7am but I don't get up until 7.30am.

To put on or take off.

Giving you the opposite ones there.

So when you put on something, you're usually putting your clothes on, getting ready for the new day.

You might want to say, I need to put on a jacket because I'm a bit chilly, a little bit cold.

Or I need to take off my jacket.

When you get home, you take off your jacket and you relax.