Shadowing Practice: 17 Phrasal Verbs I Heard in Conversation Today - Learn English Speaking with Video

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please can you make another video teaching us about phrasal verbs

phrasal verbs i need help with phrasal verbs oh you do

do you all right well i solved your problem here i

am to teach you about phrasal verbs today right now pay attention

so i had this great idea i am a podcast listener i love listening to podcasts

and i was listening to one of my favorite podcasts called volley for Serve by Aiden

and Ryan Mitchell or with Aiden and Ryan Mitchell.

I don't know.

They are a couple guys from New York State, not New York City, New York State, blonde in their early 20s, younger than me.

They speak standard American English.

They talk exactly like me, exactly like most people I know in the United States, especially in this generation.

These guys are funny.

They make a bunch of comedy skits.

They make like short form videos and long form videos.

That stuff could be good to learn English, but it's very fast, especially the short videos.

They're made to be artificially fast when they're edited, they're cut like to be really fast.

But I recommend listening to their podcast.

This is an excellent resource to improve your English because it's just a normal conversation speed.

And you can learn so much real spoken American English.

I listen to these guys because they're so funny.

They're hilarious.

I'm just laughing like crazy every time I listen to their podcast.

They have my sense of humor.

It's very random.

It's very absurd.

You can't take anything they say seriously or literally.

They're just constantly saying nonsense, but it's funny.

This is my sense of humor.

I'm going to put the links to their Volley for Serve podcast and their main channel, the Micho Brothers, in the description of the comments.

I don't know.

It'll be somewhere.

They're on YouTube.

They're also on Spotify.

So I had this great idea to listen to one of their podcast episodes.

I think they have about 20 out right now because they started it recently.

They only post once a week on Mondays.

I had this idea to go back and listen to the first episode.

Really, I could have picked any episode, but I listened to the first one.

The episodes are about an hour long.

And I sat there with my pen and paper

and I wrote down phrasal verbs that they used in natural conversation that I wanted to teach you guys.

Some of these you might already know, but they're a good refresh.

Some of them you might not know.

And I didn't write down every single one because you guys already know like basic phrasal verbs.

You already know I wake up in the morning.

If somebody tells you to get out of here, you know what they're saying.

But I wrote down 17 phrasal verbs that you may or may not know that are really good to know.

And this is taken from a real conversation.

So this is not me asking ChatGPT for phrasal verbs

or just googling it and finding some random list online made by teachers.

These are real phrasal verbs

that normal people who speak American English used in a real conversation

and if you don't believe me you can go and listen to the episode and you will hear it.

All right so let's get into it.

They said we're gonna find out who you are in this podcast.

So So what does this mean?

This is like, we're going to discover who you are.

We are going to learn who you are.

We're going to know for the first time.

We're going to get this information for the first time.

We're going to discover who you are.

We use this phrasal verb all the time.

Find out to discover information, to learn something for the first time.

And in the past, it would be found out.

So you could say, oh, I found out that so -and -so is pregnant.

I found out that you can use these beans to make a nice sauce.

You can try to lie to me, but I'm going to find out the truth.

I'm going to find out what's really going on.

Okay, the next one they said was you could switch out someone's bed for a gigantic spike.

So they were talking about bad things

that you could do before you die they were saying

that like old people don't really have to worry about consequences

because they can do whatever they want because they don't have much life left to live.

They said, yeah, what could you do?

What could you do as an old person?

Well, you could switch out someone's bed for a gigantic spike.

So to switch, for example, you have an apple, I have an orange.

I say, you want to switch?

You want to give me your apple and I give you the orange?

Do you want to switch so sometimes we use just switch

but we also use this phrasal verb switch out when we're talking about like not just exchanging something for another thing,

but like replacing it, replacing something.

So they're saying, let's switch out someone's bed for a spike.

So let's take the bed and replace it with a spike.

Do you know what a spike is?

It's like a giant thorn.

It's like a sharp, big, sharp thing.

Well, it could be little too, but they said gigantic spike.

So yeah, it's like a sharp thing that is like a thorn and it would cut you.

It would kill you if you landed on it if you fell on it.

I said you could switch out a bed with a spike.

That's something you could do at your nursing home when you're older.

All right, the next one is people pass out sometimes from helium.

So Ryan was talking about how he either has never done helium

or he doesn't really like to do helium because he knows that some people pass out when they take helium, when they inhale helium.

Helium is, you know, when you suck in the air that's inside of a balloon that was blown up professionally with helium,

then it makes your voice like all high -pitched like chipmunks, like the Alvin and the chipmunks.

But Ryan was saying that he doesn't want to do that because sometimes people pass out.

Sometimes people faint when they take helium.

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Sometimes it makes them faint or pass out.

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We use faint as well, but pass out is probably even more common.

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You can say like, I can't look at blood or I'll pass out.

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I cut myself.

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I looked at it and I passed out.

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Personally, I pass out really easily.

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I've had this condition my whole life.

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I think it's called vasovagal syncope, but I pass out super easily ever since I was a little kid.

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It doesn't matter what I eat what I do I pass

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out super easily more than the average person for whatever reason for like getting too hot like getting overheated

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or like sometimes I've almost passed out in the shower

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because it was so hot

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so yeah I pass out easily I faint easily it's not

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fun the next thing they said was I just want to

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bounce some ideas off you bounce some ideas off you so So the phrasal verb is bounce off,

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but remember you can put something in between a phrasal verb.

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So to bounce is like when you have a ball, it bounces when it goes up and down.

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So to bounce something off of something else, like to bounce a ball off the wall is to bounce it against the wall.

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So this is a common phrase.

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I just want to bounce some ideas off you.

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So I'm just going to give you some ideas.

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I'm going to throw some ideas at you

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and you can tell me what you think

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so like a ball I'm going to take these ideas

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and bounce them off of you maybe I give you an idea

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and you send it right back

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and you say nah that's not a good idea all right then I'll send you another one like

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that all right the next one is I want to figure

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out what was happening to us I want to figure out

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what was happening to us figure out this is similar to find out

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but a little bit different Figure out is more in the sense of trying to solve a problem, a mystery, a puzzle, something.

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You're trying to understand this thing.

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You're trying to not just like discover information, but kind of understand it.

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I'm trying to figure out this math problem.

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I'm trying to figure out if he likes me or not.

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I figured out how to cook blah, blah, blah without burning it.

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So they said, I want to figure out what was happening to us.

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So they don't understand what was happening to them

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so they want to figure it out okay

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and then next they were talking about time travel aiden was

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saying how he doesn't really want to go back in time

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he doesn't really want to live in another time period he

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thinks modern time the modern times is the best time to live

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and his reasoning is this he says i don't want to miss out on any medicines

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or progress we've made in civil rights so he said I don't want to miss out on any medicine.

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So to miss out on something, this is the phrasal verb, miss out on or to miss out.

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So maybe somebody invites you to a party and there's going to be a bunch of free food there.

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And you say, well, I wouldn't want to miss out on all that free food.

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Or maybe you say, I don't know if I want to go to the party.

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And your friend says, you're going to miss out.

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You're going to miss out on all that food.

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So you could say just miss out.

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But if you're saying this specific thing that you're going to miss out on, then you need on.

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Miss out on the food.

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Miss out on something.

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Or just miss out.

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You're going to miss out.

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I don't want to miss out.

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We have this acronym that is FOMO.

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and it stands for fear of missing out.

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So some people have FOMO where they always have to do stuff

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and say yes to things because they have this fear of missing out.

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They don't want to miss out on opportunities or activities or whatever.

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I personally don't have FOMO.

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I'm not concerned about missing out on anything.

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I'm not that interested in a lot of activities.

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I don't know.

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I get bored easily.

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So Aiden said he doesn't want to miss out on any medicines.

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So the medicines of modern times that we didn't have in the past, Aiden doesn't want to miss out on these medicines or the progress we've made in civil rights.

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Yeah, personally, I agree with Aiden as a woman, I would not want to go live in the past.

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I would not want to go live in a time or place where I had less human rights,

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uh, granted to me or accepted by my community, my society.

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So I'd only want to go to the past if there were, if I was going to a certain time or place in history where,

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uh, I did have the human rights that I have now as a woman.

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All right, next one.

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They said the buildup and the aftermath are not necessarily the most fun.

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Uh, so Ryan was talking about sneezing you said the sneeze is pleasurable it's enjoyable

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but the build -up and the aftermath are not necessarily the most fun so um

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so the build -up is this time before the thing happens where it's kind of growing right it's growing

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and then you sneeze right so you get this urge to sneeze this desire to sneeze

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and then you sneeze so this is the build -up the buildup, and then the aftermath is after, after the sneeze.

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So he said the buildup isn't that great, but the sneeze itself is pretty great.

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The next one is, we should go through historical heroes of history and talk about what horrible things they did.

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This is a little redundant, historical heroes of history, but the phrase of verb here is go through.

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We should go through historical heroes of history.

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Like imagine there's a list, a list of the historical heroes throughout, you know, all the heroes we've had throughout history,

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you know, the famous, famous people who've done great things, supposedly.

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He said, we should go through this list, like look at each one or consider each one to go through the list.

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And we should kind of expose any bad things that they did.

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And it's true.

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Yeah, a lot of historical figures were involved with some bad things that we don't really talk about.

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I remember going to Virginia to visit the site where the first president of the United States, George Washington, lived.

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So we went to his house.

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And yeah, George Washington had slaves.

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And so we saw the little place where the slaves lived.

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And yeah, like, you know, a lot of people back then were involved in,

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you know, what was what was normal at the time that nowadays we would think is horrible.

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So yeah, it's interesting.

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So you can use this phrasal verb go through, maybe you have a backpack full of stuff and you're trying to find one particular thing in your backpack.

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And so you're going through your backpack trying to find that one thing.

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Or maybe it's not physical.

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Maybe it's mental.

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Like you're going through this list of things in your mind to consider everything on the list.

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Like, okay, I'm grocery shopping right now.

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I'm going through the list of things

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that we need to buy in my head i didn't write it down

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but i'm like going through the list in my head okay i got

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that i got that oh i still need that i need to get

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that like this it's pretty self -explanatory go through pretty easy all right the next one the worst is

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when they don't follow up with anything okay

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so they were talking about how sometimes people just text you

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like hey what are you doing tomorrow What are you doing on Saturday?

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And they don't know how to answer that, Ryan and Aiden, because it's like, well, it depends.

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What are you proposing that we do?

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Because my answer depends on what you're going to suggest that we do, right?

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If it's a great idea, sure, I'm available.

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If it's a bad idea, if it's something I don't want to do, then maybe I'm too busy.

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And they said the worst is when they don't follow up with anything.

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So they just say, Hey, what are you doing on Saturday?

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And you say, I don't know.

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And they say, Okay.

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And they don't propose anything.

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They don't suggest or, or offer or invite you to anything.

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You know, they don't say anything.

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It's like, well, why did you even ask me?

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What was the point of that?

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So Ryan and Aiden are saying that they hate when they, the person doesn't follow up.

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So they ask the question and then they don't follow up with any other plan, any other idea.

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So to follow up is just to continue with that thought or that task or,

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you know, just to to continue with it and do the second part of it or whatever.

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Like maybe when you apply to a job, apply for a job or some kind of thing, you send an application.

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It might be a good idea to follow up on your application, to check in, to send them a message and say, hey, did you get my application? blah, blah, blah.

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You know, I'm interested, whatever, to follow up because they might have missed it the first time

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or they might just need that reminder or that extra push.

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So that would be following up if you email them again and say, hey, I'm still interested in that position.

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All right.

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The next one is you have so much to catch up on.

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You have so much to catch up on.

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So I think they were still talking about time travel or something.

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I don't know they were saying how you're a person from the past.

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You don't know about this thing and this thing and this thing of modern times.

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And so you have so much to catch up on.

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So there's so much you need to learn.

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You're so behind.

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You're so behind with the information, with the modern knowledge.

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You need to catch up on the modern stuff.

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You need to learn it.

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You need to inform yourself.

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You need to catch up on it.

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You're behind.

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And then at one point they said, Google it, look it up.

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Look it up is something we say all the time.

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It means just to look for something on the internet, to Google something, to search for something.

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It could be, it doesn't have to be on Google.

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It could be on anything, but it could be on AI or whatever, but just look it up.

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It's like search for it.

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Because we don't really say search, even though when you go to the Google page you might see the word search like the search bar

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but we don't say search it really we we say look it up look it up

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so i wonder how old

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that actor is i'm gonna look it up i'm gonna look up the age of

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that actor i'm gonna look up i'm gonna look up his age

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so usually we use look it up for like simple information

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that you can just search online and find it but you could also look something up in a book.

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You know, you can have a dictionary and you need to look up a word in the dictionary.

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So that's probably where it comes from.

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And then now we use it with the internet.

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Just the phrasal verb look up would be literally to look up, look up with your eyes,

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but look it up, look it up like that.

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We say it like that.

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Look it up, look it up.

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I got to look it up.

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I looked it up in the past.

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I looked it up.

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That is now a different meaning.

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Okay.

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The next one is we decorate every public place and it stays up for a month after the holidays as well.

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So we decorate like for Christmas, the holidays or whatever, every public place, and then it stays up for a month.

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So the decorations stay up for a month.

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So usually we use the phrasal verb put up for putting the decorations all over the place.

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We're going to put up decorations, maybe because it often involves hanging things up maybe on the wall

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or you know putting things literally physically up you know we have down we have up

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so if you're putting things up hanging things up decorating things you know up in on the wall

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or wherever then probably that's why we say put up decorations you know we're gonna put up the Christmas tree

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and we're gonna put lights on it We're going to put up Christmas decorations and then the decorations stay up.

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They stay up for a month, maybe.

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So they stay in the place where we put them up.

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I mean, they stay, they stay there.

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They stay, they stay up.

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Yeah, they don't have to be all physically up.

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You don't have to only use this if the decorations are up on something.

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You can use it just in general like we decorate every public place and the decorations stay up for a month.

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So they stay there in every public place for a month.

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That's it.

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The next one is, I like just sitting around in it.

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Okay.

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So Aiden was talking about how he likes to wear suits.

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He likes to dress up in like formal attire, formal clothes.

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but not necessarily go anywhere.

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He just likes to sit around in it.

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So sometimes we use sit around or lay around to talk about just randomly sitting or laying maybe around the house,

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you know, in random places in the house or wherever.

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You know, I might say, I'm just laying around all day.

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I'm not doing anything, just laying around.

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In this case, Aiden says he's he's got a suit on, but he's just, he's just sitting around.

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He's not doing anything.

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He's not going anywhere.

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He's just sitting around.

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He's just sitting around in it, sitting around in the suit.

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Okay.

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Then they were talking about Star Wars.

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They said how the evil side or the dark side of Star Wars, they don't really have a good reason to join the dark side.

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And Aiden was just making fun of them and said, they just say, join the dark side, give in to your hatred.

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So this means just to surrender, surrender to your hatred.

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You know, you have this hatred inside of you, just surrender to it, just give into it and join the dark side.

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Imagine you have a parent and a child and the child really wants something.

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And the parent says, no, no, we're not going to get that.

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We're not going to do that.

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And the child is insistent.

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The child says, I want it.

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I want it.

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And if the parent says, okay, fine, the parent is giving in to the child.

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The parent is giving in.

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The parent gave in, gave in to their child.

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So it's like to surrender, to say, okay, fine.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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I accept.

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That is giving in.

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The next one is the ball lights up.

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Okay.

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They were talking about toys, children's toys, and they were talking about a ball that lights up

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so something that lights up it has lights on it

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and maybe in this case the ball it lights up like the lights show

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when you bounce the ball so when it's not moving there are no lights

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but then you bounce it and it it lights up

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so I remember when we were kids some of us had light up sneakers

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so we had these shoes

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that would light up they would make you know lights you could see lights on them when you move.

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Yeah.

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Kids love things that light up.

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Any toy that lights up is probably going to sell.

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Okay.

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The next thing they said is they don't need to reel you in with the sequel product.

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Okay.

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So still talking about children's toys, kids' toys.

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They said sometimes they're just trying to sell you one product.

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They just want you to buy that one thing

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and that's it they're not trying to reel you in with a second product.

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So to reel in is like when you're fishing

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and you have like a fishing pole and you cast it and then you reel it in.

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So when you do this to the fishing pole, or it would be like this, you're reeling it in, reeling in the fishing line.

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So we use this, this phrasal verb probably even more often with other things that are not even related to phishing.

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But it has the same meaning, right?

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So you're like, you're, I'm reeling you in, you know, I'm pulling you in, you might use some kind of advertising

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or some kind of tactic strategy to reel people in to your store or to buy your product or for whatever reason,

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you know, you can imagine how this could be used.

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But so they said they don't need to reel you in with the sequel product.

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So the second, the second product, they don't need to reel you in for that.

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They just want you to buy the first product.

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And the final one, the final phrasal verb that I wrote down from this episode was, I keep getting them mixed up.

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So mixed up, this is a very common phrasal verb.

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I keep getting them mixed up is just, I keep getting them confused.

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I keep confusing them.

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I keep mixing these two things in my mind.

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I'm confusing these things.

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I'm getting them mixed up.

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Yeah, you might mix up twins.

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You might confuse them if they look very identical.

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Yeah, it's pretty self -explanatory.

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Mix up could also be a more literal sense of literally just mixing something up.

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If you're cooking, maybe you're putting a bunch of ingredients into a bowl and you're mixing the stuff up.

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You're mixing everything in the bowl.

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We use it like that as well.

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But if you're mixing up two things, I always mix those things up.

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If you hear it like that in that kind of context, not related to like literally combining things,

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then it's probably that you're confusing the two things.

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I think you can tell from the context, but I keep getting them mixed up.

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I keep confusing them.

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All right.

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So that's, that's everything I wrote down.

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It was 17 phrasal verbs that you may or may not know in an hour long conversation.

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Like I said, those were not the only phrasal verbs they used, but those were like the main ones that they used.

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If you know all of those or most of them, congratulations.

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I think you need to relax a little bit about, oh my God, I need help with phrasal verbs.

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Because what I realized listening to this hour conversation is

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that like I was expecting them to use even more phrasal verbs than they did.

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A lot of the time we don't use phrasal verbs like we use it every now

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and then you know it was 17 phrasal verbs

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that I wrote down from an hour of talking an hour of non -stop talking back

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and forth a lot of different topics

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and I was listening very closely very intently So what that told me and should tell you guys is that, yes, we use phrasal verbs,

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but it's not like constantly and a lot of them you already know or you can figure out from the context.

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And if most of these were new to you, OK, then you're you're you know, you're just starting to learn phrasal verbs and that's OK.

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You're just at an earlier point of your English learning journey.

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I just wanted to communicate to you guys that, yeah, this topic of phrasal verbs is, it is hard.

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It is one of the hardest things about English, but because it's strange, it's strange and it's not, you know, it doesn't exist in many other languages,

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but it's maybe not as hard as you thought.

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And it's not as big of an issue for your comprehension as you thought.

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And a lot of the times, you don't even have to use them yourself because there's another way of expressing it.

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But there are certain ones that I think you do need to use.

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Like, for example, find out, figure out.

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There are some of them that are kind of essential for you to use in your English vocabulary.

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And then there are others that are not so important.

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Like, I'm going to bounce some ideas off you.

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Like, you could go your whole life without ever saying that.

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It's totally fine

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so like I always say just relax a little bit take

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some of the pressure off you to to to know all the phrasal verbs

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because a lot of the times they are kind of obvious from the context what they mean

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and you can kind of figure it out in the moment

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or you could just ask the person

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but it's not like every sentence people are using phrasal verbs all right that's it I hope

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that helped you guys

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and i will see you in the next video let me

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know in the comments what you want me to talk about in another video

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and i will get around to doing the ielts video at some point um i will do

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that i have not forgotten about that

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but i wanted to make a phrasal verb video today

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so that's what i'm doing all right take care love ya bye

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 419 sentences and 4795 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:44. The speaker talks at a natural 173 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
verb noun	/vɝb/	A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
bounce verb	/baʊns/	To change the direction of motion after hitting an obstacle.
reel verb	/ˈɹiːl/	To wind on a reel.
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
decoration noun	/ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/	The act of adorning, embellishing, or honoring; ornamentation.
spike noun	/spaɪk/	A sort of very large nail.
confuse verb	/kənˈfjuːz/	to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand
discover verb	/dɪˈskʌvə/	To find or learn something for the first time.
toy noun	/tɔɪ/	Something to play with, especially as intended for use by a child.
surrender verb	/səˈɹɛndə(ɹ)/	To give up into the power, control, or possession of another.
faint adjective	/feɪnt/	Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness
necessarily adverb	/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/	Inevitably; of necessity.
sharp adjective	/ʃɑɹp/	Terminating in a point or edge, especially one that can cut or pierce easily; not dull, obtuse, or rounded.
hatred noun	/ˈheɪtɹɪd/	A strong aversion; an intense dislike.
aftermath noun	/ˈæf.tɚˌmæθ/	That which happens after, that which follows, usually of strongly negative connotation in most contexts, implying a preceding catastrophe.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
light up verb		To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten.
pass out verb		To faint; to become unconscious.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
miss out verb		To miss an experience or lose an opportunity, etc. that should not be missed.
mix up verb		To mix or blend thoroughly and completely.
look up verb	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	To have better prospects.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 155 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: aftermath /ˈæf.tɚˌmæθ/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, thorn /θoɹn/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, shoe /ˈʃu/
Long words — get the stress right: decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, hilarious /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like verb, bounce, reel.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has never done · I've had · we've made
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is taken · would be found · was blown

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: 17 Phrasal Verbs I Heard in Conversation Today - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?