English Phrasal Verbs Useful in the Workplace

E221: 🎙️ Welcome to another episode of The English Like a Native Podcast, exclusively for our valued Plus Members. Today, we're diving into the realm of phrasal verbs, essential for general English proficiency but particularly beneficial in professional environments.

💼 First up, we explore some common workplace phrasal verbs like "take on" and "carry out", but we also take a look at some lesser-known phrasal verbs such as "iron out" and "zero in on". There's a total of 10 fantastic phrasal verbs, so tune in and get to know them all!

🚀 Remember, mastering phrasal verbs is key to enhancing your English fluency. If you're interested in boosting your phrasal verb prowess, check out our Phrasal Verb Booster course here: https://englishlikeanative.co.uk/phrasal-verb-exercises/

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Transcript

0:01

Hello, Plus Member and welcome to another Bonus Episode. I want to start out by saying thank you, your support honestly makes so much difference. It really helps with the cost of production. As you know, I make a lot of content and I have a big team that support me in making sure this content gets out on time, as polished as it can be. So, thank you for helping me to do that. Now, today I'm going to be focusing on phrasal verbs because they are so important and these are ones that you should know, regardless of whether you use English professionally or not, but they are specifically useful for the professional environment. So, good in general, but particularly good for work. So, let's get started. I'm going to start with one of the most common ones, which is to take on, to take on. This phrasal verb means to accept responsibility or duties. So, for example, if I had a new team member join the ELAN team, I might need that team member to take on a certain amount of administrative duties. So, they might have to do certain admin tasks like checking lesson plans before they are posted to students or scheduling the lessons that they will be running. I may need them to answer emails or correct students' work for me. So, those would be administrative tasks that I need them to take on alongside taking on the role of teaching in my Conversation Club. So, this phrasal verb is used often to talk about gaining or accepting responsibility or duties. How many things have you taken on recently? Have you taken on too much? That's usually my problem. I tend to take on far too much. I do far too many tasks and this can lead to burnout, which many of us will be familiar with in this modern day and age. We all tend to take on a bit too much in life and many of us end up burning out. So, the next phrasal verb on the list is to carry out. We carry out one of these tasks or duties that we have taken on. To carry out means to perform it, to do it, or to complete it. So, I might take on the responsibility of writing a special podcast episode. So, I've taken on this responsibility. I'm going to do a special episode. So, I've taken on the responsibility. Now, I need to carry out that responsibility. I need to do the task. I will carry it out today and I will carry it out with enthusiasm, passion and pride. So, to carry out. Next on the list is one that you may be familiar with and it is to set up. So, to set up something is to arrange or to start something. So, for example, if you set up a business, then you establish and start a business. I set up this company, The English Like a Native brand and business. I set up my team in order to support me with different elements of the business, like running the podcast. I have a podcast team that helped me. And when I record the podcast, I record it on a special setup. So I had to set up my equipment. I had to make sure I had all the right equipment and that it was all ready to go. So, I set up my office and I set up my podcast equipment. If I'm having a guest on the podcast, then I'll need to set up the meeting. So, we will send emails back and forth, trying to arrange a good time. And then I will create a link to the recording studio that we're using online and send that link. So, I've set it all up. Have you set anything up lately? Next on the list is to follow up. To follow up. This is used to describe acting on a previous action. Okay, so, imagine you're a doctor and you see a patient who's having hip pain. You prescribe some medicine and you tell them to try some exercises and maybe to contact a physiotherapist. A month later you haven't heard from this patient again but you are concerned and so, you ask your receptionist to follow up with that patient to get in touch with them and find out how things are going. Has the hip pain improved? Did they do the things you asked them to do? Okay. I might follow up an email. If I send an email to a new student who's just joined the Fluency Programme,"Hello new student, welcome to the Fluency Programme. These are all the things you should do to get started." I tell my students who join the Fluency Programme to book a one-to-one call with me, but sometimes students don't do this. And so I might follow up and say, Hey, I noticed that you haven't been very active and you haven't booked a call with me. Is everything okay? Is there anything I can help you with? Do you have any questions?" So, I am following up on my previous action, which was to invite them to have a one-to-one with me. Next on the list we have iron out. Pay attention to the pronunciation there. Iron is spelt I R O N, but we say it iron. Iron. Iron out. To iron something out is to resolve an issue or a difficulty, just imagining a shirt that is full of creases, it's all wrinkly. Imagine those creases being little problems or little details that need sorting out. So, you then take an iron and you iron them out. So, ironing out something is to resolve difficulties or tie up loose ends to sort out little issues. For example, if you are arranging a dinner party, and you have eight people coming to the dinner party, and you know that one person has a food allergy, and you find out that your delivery of ingredients that you booked is going to be late. So, these are little issues that you need to deal with. They're not huge issues, but they're little things that need dealing with. You also don't have any napkins, you need to order napkins. So, there's lots of little issues and a few difficulties that need resolving. And so the process of resolving them is ironing out. So, you're going to iron out the details of the dinner party and then you'll be good to go. Let's recap what we've covered so far, because I think that's five phrasal verbs we've done so far. We had take on, which is to accept a responsibility or duty. And then we had carry out, which is to perform or complete that task or that duty that you've taken on. We had set up, which is to start or establish something or to arrange something like a meeting. And then we had follow up, which is to check or to act upon a previous action or to continue a communication that you've already started. And then iron out to resolve any issues or difficulties that you may have. Next is the phrasal verb drum up. To drum up. Now this is usually followed by business or support. So, you might drum up business or drum up support. This means to generate interest or generate support for something. So, it's just about getting, it's about getting interest, getting support, getting business. For example, if you are new to an area and you've bought a business premises and you're going to start new hairdressers. So, you're a hairdresser and you're going to start your own salon. Okay, so you've set up your new business and you have sent out some emails and you're following up on those emails sending more communication saying,"Hi, I sent you an email before telling you about the new business that I've set up. Well, we're open now. So, I just wanted to follow up and invite you to come to our opening night. Woo-hoo. Get a free haircut!" This action and other actions you might do you might be sending out flyers, putting up posters, going out onto the streets and talking to people saying,"Hi, I'm new to town. I've just set up a new business. We're having a launch tonight. You're welcome to come and get a free haircut." This action is you generating interest. You are drumming up business. Okay. To drum up. Next on the list is to phase out. To phase out. So, if you want to stop doing something or stop using something, rather than just completely stopping straight away, you would do it gradually. And this is phasing something out. So, you do it over a period of time. For example, if I decided to stop my Conversation Club which is not something I'm ever likely to do, not in the near future anyway. But if I decided to stop, I might decide to do it gradually. So, now we offer four to five classes a week. This might be reduced initially to three classes a week, and then two, and then one, and then eventually that would stop. So, I would phase the classes out. Okay. So, I think that one's quite straightforward. And the last phrasal verb on the list for today is to zero in on something. To zero in on something. This means to focus very closely on one thing. To give one thing your all, your 100% attention. Okay. So, to give it special attention, to concentrate on this one thing. So, imagine that we are, I say imagine, we are currently migrating all of our courses and services from our main website over to our community site. Now I could choose to work on the migration of all the courses, all at once, or I could decide to zero in on one course at a time. So, I would focus only on one course. I would think about nothing else. I would just do one-course migration at a time. And when one is finished, I will zero in on another course. Or as an English learner, you might be learning English in general, but decide that actually this summer I want to zero in on my pronunciation. I want to focus all my time and all my energy and effort on working my pronunciation. So, I want to get that to a point where I'm really comfortable, really confident. So, that's all of our phrasal verbs today. Let me just do one final recap. We started with take on, to accept responsibility. Then we had carry out, which is to perform or complete that task or duty. We had set up, which is to arrange or to start something. Then we had follow up, which is to check or to continue to communicate with someone after a previous communication. Then we had iron out, which is to resolve an issue or a difficulty. We had drum up, which is to generate business, generate support or interest. Then we had phase out, which is to gradually stop something. And then zero in on, so to pay very close attention to something. Okay. I do hope you found today useful. Remember phrasal verbs are really important for English fluency. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can become fluent in English without them, because I guarantee they are used by so many people. I use phrasal verbs in pretty much everything I say. So, I highly recommend that you do spend time picking up phrasal verbs because they are not the easiest thing to learn. If you are interested in really boosting your phrasal verb knowledge, I do offer a Phrasal Verb Booster. I'll pop a link into the show notes. It's a fun, easy way to learn a lot of phrasal verbs in a short space of time, but I'll link it below and you can find out more. Okay, until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.