This is Jack Farm to Fluency, and this is the latest episode of the To Fluency podcast. It is great to have you here. Now today we're going to learn an area of English that is my favorite area to learn, or one of them in a foreign language. So when I was studying Spanish, I used to love learning these types of phrases, and I'll tell you what they are. They're called prepositional verbs, prepositional verbs. And this is where you have a verb, then a preposition, and
then an object. For example, I love listening to music. Listen to music, a verb, preposition and then an object. And I'm sure when you've been studying English and trying to speak English, you're thinking about, OK, what preposition do I use after this verb? And for example, in Spanish, you don't use a preposition after listen escucha musica, excuse me for my the way I speak Spanish,
but you don't use a preposition. And then in if different languages, you might use a preposition, but it's a different 1. So what you can do in this lesson is listen to the phrases and then go to the description and learn the phrases because they're going to be really useful for you. We're going to go through quite a few today. I'm going to try and make the examples entertaining and relevant and fun.
But the key here is to learn the sentences that I'm going to give you and then try to use them in similar ways. So I've talked about how you can practice your writing, and you can practice your writing by taking these types of prepositional verbs and creating sentences that are relevant to your life. Because a big mistake I find is that when a student learns new vocabulary like a verb, they try to use it in ways that that just don't make sense.
And the way it makes sense is if you learn the verb plus the preposition plus the object. And these are just like collocations and collocations are king, the words that go together naturally. So you can learn these in a natural way by listening to this lesson. Let's start with believe in, to believe in something. And this means to have faith in the existence or truth of something. And the best example here is a question, do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts? Which means do you believe that ghosts exist? OK, so to believe in something is to have faith in the existence. Now, it can also mean to have an opinion that something is right or desirable. For example, I don't believe in the way things are being censored at the moment. So I don't believe in the way that things are being censored at the moment, which means I don't have the opinion. I don't agree with this. I think it is wrong.
The next one is depend on, depend on. I hear a lot of people here using depend in, but no, it's depend on. And again, it's a great one to know. I use it all the time. For example, if somebody says will I become fluent in English this year, I say it depends on what you do with your time and how much time you spend learning English. So it depends on different factors. You might hear parents say something like how much TV time you get later will depend on how much you tidy today.
Or whether we go on vacation this year will depend on flight restrictions. So whether we go on vacation this year will depend on flight restrictions. The next one is look at look at this, look at this, look at this. And we use this to bring someone's attention to or, or their eyes to something. The other day it was raining, but the sun was also out. So I went outside and I said to Kate, quick look at the rainbow. Look at the rainbow. So pay attention or use your
eyes to see the rainbow. Quick. Look at the rainbow outside. Or you might say that guy's looking at me in a weird way. That guy is looking at me in a weird way. Look at can also be used when thinking about something carefully. For example, I'll take a look at what you sent me and make a decision later. So I'll take a look at what you sent me and make a decision later. Another example, could you take a quick look at my new Lesson
plan? Could you take a quick look at my new Lesson plan #4 is apologise to to apologise to someone? For example, can you apologise to your sister? You shouldn't have said that. Could you apologise to your sister? And my boss finally apologised to me for shouting the other day. My boss finally apologised to me for shouting the other day. Now here I am stressing the word finally because it's taking him a long time to do it.
My boss finally apologised to me for shouting the other day #5 is to agree with, for example, I don't agree with the thing you said. I don't agree with a thing you said. Now, in a recent podcast episode, I talked about the example of I couldn't disagree more or I couldn't agree more. But in this case, we're using the simple version. Agree with someone. I don't agree with a thing you said, or we all know that person who never agrees with what we do and is always critical.
You can say, can you just agree with me for once in your life? Can you just agree with me for once in your life? And I don't say this very often, but I agree with the Prime Minister. He's right. I agree with the Prime Minister, he's right. The next one is deal with something. And this can have various definitions, but we're going to focus on to take action to do something or to handle a situation. For example, I can't deal with everything right now. I can't deal with everything
right now. Things are overwhelming. I have too much stuff going on. I have to do this, I have to do that. I can't deal with everything right now, which means I can't handle the situation. Everything is too overwhelming for me and I can't take action on everything. Another example is he's dealing with his new school really well, which means he's adapting to the new school really well. Sometimes when somebody starts a new school, it's difficult for them.
They don't know what to do. They don't have any friends, they don't know their teachers. But in this example, he's dealing with his new school really well. And in the workplace, you might hear, yes, I'll deal with it in the morning. Don't worry boss, I'll deal with it in the morning, which means you'll do what you need to do in the morning. The next one is 1 that I actually used yesterday because we were at a pool party and I asked my children, did you thank them for the birthday party?
So to thank somebody for something, did you thank grandma for the present? I just want to thank you for being here on this channel. I just want to thank you for listening to my podcast #8 is suffer from to suffer from something. And this means to have some kind of problem with something. Often it can be medical too. So for example, I'm suffering from a lack of sleep at the moment. I have a problem because I'm not
sleeping very well. I'm suffering from a lack of sleep at the moment and I'm suffering from a little lack of self esteem right now. Now self esteem is similar to confidence. I'm suffering from a little lack of self esteem right now. The next one is smell of to smell of something. Now sometimes my wife comes home and says this house smells of sardines or this hell house smells of liver because I like to eat beef liver so to smell of something. Another example is this car
smells of wet dog. So if you've had a wet dog in your car, there's a very specific smell. So this car smells of wet dog #10 is laugh at, laugh at. You're laughing at me. Do I amuse you? There's a great scene in Goodfellas which you might know where someone's laughing at someone and he says, do I amuse you? But you're laughing at me. And you can also just ask the question, what are you laughing at? What are you laughing at? So if somebody's laughing in a room, you might want to ask
them, what are you laughing at? And then this is a true story and this might happen with you, but it's OK. They started laughing at me when I started talking in Spanish. They started laughing at me when I started talking in Spanish. We have two more to go #11 is think about to think about something. And there's a great line here from a Robbie Williams song who is a British singer, and it's called Feel. I think I'll leave a link to the
song in the description. But he says I'm contemplating thinking about thinking, which think about that for a moment. I'm contemplating thinking about thinking. It's a great line because it's basically saying three things. It's like looking in various mirrors. It's quite confusing, but maybe you understand it. I'm contemplating thinking about thinking, But here's a more simple example. Let us think about it for a couple of days and get back to you.
So let us think about it for a couple of days and get back to you. And sometimes you might just want to ask somebody what you what you thinking about right now? What are you thinking about right now? And the last one is forget about, forget about it, Forget about it, which is a New York accent. But yeah, let's give you an example here. Did you remember to call Mr. Smith? Oh, no, I forgot about that. I forgot about that. I feel terrible.
I forgot about it. I just completely forgot about it. And then if somebody brings up or starts talking about something in the past, you, you haven't thought about it for a while. You might say, oh man, I completely forgot about that holiday. I completely forgot about that holiday. But now you remember it. And an example from the office is I think Susan's forgotten about the meeting again. Susan isn't in the meeting. You might say, I think Susan's forgotten about the meeting
again. OK, so those are our 12 prepositional verbs. Believe in, depend on, agree with, deal with, thank for, suffer from, smell of, look at, laugh at, think about, forget about and apologise too. I forgot about that one. So like I said, go to the description, look at the sentences there and think about ways that you can learn these over the long term. And also check out that song by Robbie Williams called Feel.
It's a good song actually. And like I said, create some of your own sentences here that are relevant to your life. For example, you might want to say I completely forgot about complete the sentence. Why do people laugh at me when I complete the sentence? I'm always thinking about complete the sentence and use the link in the description to the grammar checker so that it can correct any mistakes you
make. And if it works properly, it should correct any mistakes you make with the prepositions too. So it's a very powerful tool tool. There's a link in the description to that. So if you have enjoyed this episode, then please share it with a friend. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast too, if you haven't done so already. And yeah, just send an episode to a friend.
Just click the link, share it, share on WhatsApp, on Facebook and Twitter, message, message people, call them, call them and tell them about the podcast. Speak in English as you do it to get some practice via whichever way you want to share it. I would be very grateful if you did that. And again, thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure teaching you. And while you're here, why not check out some more episodes? OK, bye for now.