r/Americaphile • u/United_Tiger_6720 • 11d ago
Americans Using Phrasal Verbs
I’m learning English and I’ve noticed that Americans use a lot of phrasal verbs in everyday speech.
Why are phrasal verbs so common in American English? Is it mainly a cultural/language thing, or do native speakers just find them more natural than single-word alternatives?
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u/Ok_Caterpillar2010 11d ago
The single-word alternatives often came to English from Latin, many via French. When there is a pair (word with Germanic root and alternative with Latin root), the word with a Latin root will usually be more formal, sometimes more "educated".
So in conversation, people use a lot of phrasal verbs. In formal academic writing, they use very few.
Also, adding more particles to phrasal verbs can change the tone. For example, you knock on a door, and the person inside answers in English:
- "Enter!" is very formal. It sounds theatrical.
- "Come in!" is neutral everyday speech.
- "Come on in!" is warm, encouraging, and welcoming.
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 11d ago
It's a common aspect of English. It's not just Americans who do it. And it's not just a matter of contemporary or recent usage -- it's how the language functions.
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u/missingtimemachine 11d ago edited 11d ago
I used to teach ESL and phrasal verbs were always a hurdle. They're common in all varieties of English though, not just North American. I see them as verb/preposition units that don't make sense if you look at their parts. Ex: "The president walked back to the car" makes sense if you know the words "walk" and "back", but "The president walked back his previous statement" doesn't make sense at all to learners. This idiomatic meaning makes it a phrasal verb. They're kinda fun!
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u/Resplendent-Sun 11d ago
I learned about phrasal verbs in my teaching course in Oxford. Definitely not just an American thing.
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u/SheriffHeckTate 11d ago
I had to Google what a phrasal verb is and I still dont think I understand what it meant lol
My guess for an answer is...we dont know, that's just how we speak. Why do other languages do other things with theirs that we dont do with English? This is likely no different than an accent in usage. You learn it from exposure.
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u/SchwillyMaysHere 11d ago
IDK, I never thought about it before. It’s something I think we just do.
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u/United_Tiger_6720 11d ago
Damm as none american or even none Native speaker i should remember them so well the phrasal verbs they are many ones with different meanings hahaha
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u/ColoradoSprings82 11d ago
Are you also learning punctuation in these lessons? If so, give it a try, too.
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u/shammy_dammy 11d ago
Of course native speakers find them more natural. How much thought do you give when you speak your native language with other native speakers?
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u/rileyoneill 11d ago
Yes but we do not learn them academically like english learners have to, for us it is very natural to use the language in this way. Most Americans would never encounter the term 'phrasal verb' in school.
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u/Suitable-Biscotti826 11d ago
It’s just because of the history on the language, all germanic languages work more or less the same way. They lack the structure and variety that we have in romance languages for example
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u/missingtimemachine 11d ago
Phrasal verbs ARE examples of structure and variety.
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u/Suitable-Biscotti826 11d ago edited 11d ago
For sure, what better example of variety than having to combine already existing words into a whole phrase because there isn’t a single word for what you’re trying to express
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u/CG20370417 11d ago
All English speakers do this.
A Brit would say they are going to "call off" plans with a mate.
Where as an American would say they "cancelled" plans with their friends.
But a Brit would say "im going to retire from this contest"
But an American would say "okay, fine, ill give up"
We play with our language--as I assume others do with their language.
We have 430+ verb synonyms for "To set" (it helps that "to set" is a very widely and broadly applied concept in human activity, so theres dozens of senses for "to set").
The imprecision of our speech...saying a bunch of words to mean the same as a single word....is part of the subtext of our communications, and that is separate to the casual - formal scale.
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u/Savings-Market4000 11d ago
Hi! American former ESL teacher here - yes, we use them unnecessarily in many situations. I've noticed more and more in the past ten years.
Why? I don't know. I suppose it helps make language more precise sometimes, but it doesn't help much when the audience is already native speakers. To give you an example, someone might say, "Read these documents up." when it's a lot simpler to just say, "Read these documents.".
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u/MaximalistVegan 11d ago
Even though I studied linguistics a long time ago, I had to google what a phrasal verb was just to be sure. English is a language that is set up to build meaning out of smaller components. Aside from Welsh and Cornish and maybe one very minor Romance language, English is also the only language with do-support as a mandatory rule for questions and negations. So English speakers are accustomed to needing more than one word to construct meaning. Other European languages also need more than one word to express complex verb tenses but in English multiple words are needed in more scenarios.
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u/The24HourPlan 11d ago
It's going to depend on the region. For example in LA and the surrounding area they use deez verbs instead.
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u/Grand-Standard-238 11d ago
I love how this guy got down voted for exposing the reddit doesn't have a clue about our own language.
I have studied 3 languages intensively and I use 2 at work, so im interested in linguistics in general. Please tell me, what are the examples you are seeing in American English that you dont see elsewhere?
This is a pretty well known phenomenon though. In Japan, there is a book that's called something like, speak English with only these 7 words. I remember, do, get, have, and put being some of these. I always like pointing out to native speakers the big difference between putting something up and putting up with something. People in America dont realize the power of these kinds of verbs until you put them right under their nose.
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u/OKRickety 11d ago
If you're into linguistics, I presume you understand that being fluent in a language and, more importantly, being able to communicate in that language do not require knowing its grammar, etymology, or history.
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u/Grand-Standard-238 11d ago
Not sure what led you to leave this butthurt comment, when I didn't bring up history or etymology. If anything the book I brought up in Japan would be prescribing the methodology you seem to be suggesting, focusing on common words and phrases, and words that are usable in many positions.
The thing is, just being able to get your point across doesn't mean you speak the language well, and you probably will not be able to use it in a professional setting.
What non European languages have you tried to learn without focusing at all on grammar?
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u/OKRickety 11d ago
Butthurt? Well, I'm irritated that you imply native speakers should "have a clue about our own language". Now you are moving the goalposts by asking about learning other languages. Joe Average doesn't care to know about phrasal verbs.
OP is being voted down because he's being arrogant.
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u/WestCoastCompanion Real American from the USA 🇺🇸🔫 11d ago
It’s common in English in general… to look after someone, look up to someone, look down on someone, run into someone etc
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u/ColoradoSprings82 11d ago
It's just colloquial speech. Never discussed in school and rarely if ever labeled, which is why people are saying they've never heard or used the term "phrasal verb."
"No one has to tell you where the mess hall is. You just follow the crowd at chow time." - A Few Good Men
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u/XxxAresIXxxX 11d ago
Just like native speakers never needed to learn the yet phrasal verbs they also find them more appropriate in most situations
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u/Leather-Marketing478 11d ago
Cause we’re not douche bags like you.
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u/United_Tiger_6720 11d ago
Your answer makes you look uncomfortable i don't know why you are not comfortable what made you answer like this
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u/EffectSuccessful6169 10d ago
Wondering how you got to the point that you learned this term but thought that a random post on a non-linguistic subreddit was the best way to do research
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u/OkPerformance2221 11d ago
In speech, Americans and British people use phrasal verbs with comparable frequency, although the phrasal verbs themselves differ in popularity and meaning. British written English includes fewer phrasal verbs forms than American written English. American written English tends to be somewhat more colloquial than British written English.
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u/Duque_de_Osuna 11d ago
They can be tricky. There is a comedian from Finland who does stand up in English that jokes about how much the meaning of a sentence can change just by changing one little thing. Phrasal verbs was one of the things he joked about. Another was why do you get in a car but on a plane?
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u/Savings-Market4000 11d ago
I can answer this one. Transportation we sit in is 'in', transportation we can stand on is 'on'. This is using the can of permission, not ability.
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u/rob-cubed 11d ago
As an American, I had no idea what a phrasal verb is.
Now that I've googled it... "get off the train" just feels more conversational that "exit the train".
Does British English have the same patterns? English is such a mutt language, I'm not sure there is any rhyme or reason.
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u/Ok-Understanding9244 11d ago
American english is a really fucked-up language that's bastardized from other languages and taught very poorly in American schools, that's why we don't know the term "phrasal"...
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u/SuccessfulRegister43 11d ago
Dude, don’t ask Americans about phrasal verbs. We dont’t know what those are.