An amazing discovery - Phrasal Verbs

On Monday Spencer received a D+ on an English quiz. He was heartbroken. I felt sorry for him and thought it's a good thing I don't have those problems. Little did I know.

On Wednesday I found I have some English problems of my own. I spoke to a colleague on the phone in English this week and asked him to do something. I asked: "Would you free up that document for me?" The colleague, a native German speaker basically said, what the heck are you talking about? I had to translate my shortened sentence into a full English sentence. Something like: "Would you close the document so I may open it for editing." As you probably know, even on a network only one person can edit a document at a time. He had the document open and I needed to open it and edit it.

I was a bit frustrated. Why can't the people here understand me? I thought.

I turned to the colleague sitting next to me and said, my English is often too complicated and people struggle to understand me. Why is that, I asked. He had overheard my phone conversation and said, matter of factly, "You're using phrasal verbs. That makes it difficult for a non-native speaker to understand the context of what you are saying."

I was astonished, partially because he knew instantly what the problem was, and partially because I had never even heard of phrasal verbs. I asked "what is a phrasal verb?" He explained it to me briefly and then I began scouring the internet for information about phrasal verbs. From English Page I found this definition: 1. A phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition or adverb which creates a meaning different from the original verb.

That didn't help me to much because I couldn't remember what a preposition was. The examples I found helped considerably.

Phrasal Verb ==> actual meaning in real English
Fall behind ==> Make less progress than anticipated or planned

Discovering this has opened doors to better English and German. I found several websites which contain translations - phrasal verb into real English and then into German.

I realized that I was constantly using phrasal verbs and I was constantly thinking of them while trying to speak German. Whenever such a phrase comes to mind I would naturally try and translate my English sentences into German. But I would always struggle because "fall behind" is not truly what I want to say: make less progress than anticipated is what I want to say. I then realized it is much easier to translate the 2nd sentence.

It was truly quite a discovery for me.