1. Phrasal verbs vs. prepositional verbs

Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs may look similar, but they do not act the same.

Phrasal verbs are verbs that contain multiple words.
They have their own special meaning.

Prepositional verbs are verbs that add a preposition to tell what direction the verb is done.
The meaning is the same as the original verb, but with an added direction.

2. What is a phrasal verb?

Phrasal verbs are verbs that contain two or more words.

The first word is a verb, and the second is an adverb. The adverb changes the verb.
This means phrasal verbs have their own special meaning.

Original verb	Phrasal verb	Meaning	Example sentence
put	put away	to tidy out of sight	He put away the toys into the box.
bring	bring up	to raise an idea	Hillary brought up the price rise at the meeting.
blow	blow up	to explode	The car blew up a little after 2am.
pick	pick up	to collect a person from a place	I need to pick up the children from school at 3 o’clock.
beat	beat up	to physically assault	Phillip beat up Dave because Dave ate Phillip’s pudding.
take	take apart	to deconstruct, making into small pieces	Candy took apart the phone but now cannot put it together again.
call	call off	to cancel an event	The game was called off because of snow.
care	care for	to look after someone who is ill or infirm	It is very kind of you to care for your grandmother.

3. What is a prepositional verb?

Prepositional verbs are also verbs that contain two or more words.

However, in a prepositional verb the second word does not change the verb meaning.
It is a preposition which says where the verb goes.

Verb	Prepositional verb	Meaning	Example sentence
believe	believe in	to put belief into an object	Do you believe in God?
get	get on	to get into a vehicle, or stand on top of something	They got on the train at Crewe.
take care	take care of	to care for someone or something	She takes care of her sick husband.
look	look for	to look in a search for something missing	They are looking for their lost dog.
work	work for	to work in the employment of a company or person	I work for a terrible company.
apologise	apologise for	to apologise for a specific reason	I apologise for my husband’s behaviour.
sympathise	sympathise with	to have sympathy for someone or something	She sympathises with him, but still has to fire him.

4. Splitting verbs

Phrasal verbs can be split.
This means the object can be put inside the phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verb	Object	Example of object inside phrasal verb
put away	the toys	Daisy put the toys away in their box.
blow up	the car	The gang blew the car up at 2am.
beat up	Dave	Phillip beat Dave up again, this time because Dave ate Phillip’s cookies.
turn on	the television	Could you turn the television on?
turn down	the job offer	I think you were right to turn the job offer down.

If using an object pronoun (me, you, him, her, it, us, them), a phrasal verb must be split.

Phrasal verb sentence with object (not split)	Phrasal verb sentence with object (split)	Phrasal verb sentence with object pronoun (split)
Jess typed up her notes.	Jess typed her notes up.	Jess typed them up.
Archibald bought up the restaurant.	Archibald bought the restaurant up.	Archibald bought it up.
Sean will clean up the mess.	Sean will clean the mess up.	Sean will clean it up.
You have taken over the project.	You have taken the project over.	You have taken it over.

Prepositional verbs cannot be split.

5. Exercises

Which of these are phrasal verbs, and which are prepositional verbs?
(i) give up
(ii) push against
(iii) turn off
(iv) write down
(v) read along