Phrasal verbs: the hardest easy thing in English

English grammar is unusually small - almost no endings, no gender, no cases. The difficulty moved somewhere else: into ordinary little verbs that change meaning completely depending on the word that follows them.

One verb, six meanings

Look means one thing. Look up means find in a reference, look after means care for, look into means investigate, look out means beware, and look forward to means anticipate with pleasure. None of those is guessable from look, and all of them are everyday English.

Which ones can be split

Some can be split and some cannot. You can turn the television on or turn on the television, and if you use a pronoun you must split it - turn it on, never turn on it. But you look after a child, never look a child after. The rule is real, though most speakers have never been taught it.

The formal twin

There is a formal alternative for nearly every one - investigate for look into, postpone for put off, tolerate for put up with. Knowing both is what lets you sound right in an email and right in a pub, which are not the same register.

How to learn them

Do not learn them in alphabetical lists. Learn them in the situation they belong to - the ones about arranging a meeting together, the ones about giving up a habit together. Grouped by meaning they stick; grouped by the particle they blur into each other.