Name: 12 Confusing Phrasal Verbs
Uploaded: 2025-06-26T03:06:41.000Z
Duration: 13 min 56 s
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Hello, lovely students, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Phrasal verbs are already really difficult, but there are some phrasal verbs that really confuse my students.

To-infinitive

Today, I am going to teach you 12 commonly confused phrasal verbs and make sure you totally understand them so that you can use them confidently.

Before we start, there's one very important thing that I must say.

Many of the phrasal verbs that I am going to teach you today have multiple meanings.

In this video, we will just discuss the meanings that students normally get confused about.

We won't cover every meaning as that would take too long, but if you are thinking, no, give me every meaning I need to understand, I have got you covered.

I go into much more detail in the free PDF that goes with this lesson.

You also get a quiz and a link to some secret exercises.

To download that, click on the link in the description box or scan that QR code there.

You enter your name and your email address, you sign up to my mailing list, and the PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.

Our first pair is to end up versus to end in.

My students often mix these up and struggle to know when to use each one.

Use ended up or ended in to complete these sentences.

You should have, it ended in, disaster, and we ended up walking home, but why?

This means to reach a final situation or place, often unexpectedly or unintentionally.

All of the buses were cancelled, so we ended up walking home.

This is an example of an unexpected outcome.

He studied engineering, but ended up in a completely different industry.

End up tends to be followed by an ING verb, like walking, a phrase with a preposition, like in a completely different industry, or an adjective.

Let's see an example with an adjective now.

We got completely lost and ended up exhausted and frustrated by the whole thing.

Now, to end in means to have something as a result.

It's often used for negative situations or events, and collocates strongly with words like disaster, divorce, failure, and tragedy.

End in doesn't always refer to something negative though.

So, to recap, end up is about where you finish, literally or figuratively, often by accident, while end in is about how something concludes, often with a specific result.

Now, let's move on to our second pair, to look up versus to look for.

Look up means to search for information using a specific source or tool, like a dictionary or a computer.

For example, I often look up the meanings of new words in a dictionary.

Or, I'm not sure what time the shop opens.

This means the object can go immediately after up, or between look and up.

If the object is a pronoun, it has to go in the middle.

Look for means to search for somebody or something, often because you've lost or you need them or it.

For example, can you help me look for my keys?

Or, if you see John, tell him I'm looking for him.

Unlike look up, look for is not separable.

The object must come after the whole phrasal verb.

So, to look up means to search for information in a specific place.

And to look for means to search for something or someone you've lost or need.

For pair number three, we have two phrasal verbs with take.

Both can mean remove, but they're used differently.

We usually take our Christmas decorations in early January.

And take your shoes and socks before entering the temple.

We take down the decorations and take off our shoes and socks.

My students don't tend to use this phrasal verb.

We use take down for things that are high up or things that are fixed.

Our Christmas decorations are often both.

Another example, we took down all the curtains when we were painting the room.

We usually use to take off to mean to completely remove clothes, shoes, or accessories.

For example, I always take off my jewellery before going swimming.

Now, let's take a look at some three-part phrasal verbs.

If you catch up on something, you either bring yourself up to date with something or you do an action that you didn't have time to do earlier.

For example, I need to catch up on some work.

Catch up on is followed by an object, which is a thing, not a person.

However, we do say that you catch somebody up on something.

And that means that you help bring someone else up to date on something.

For example, can you catch me up on what happened while I was away?

To catch up with means to reach the same level as a person who was ahead of you.

For example, if you study hard, you'll catch up with the rest of the class.

It also means to exchange news with someone you haven't spoken to for a while.

For example, I love catching up with my old school friends.

Catch up with is usually followed directly by a person.

So we use catch up on when we're behind and we want to get up to date.

And we use to catch up with when we close a gap or reconnect socially.

Pair number five is to bring up versus to grow up.

Which of those verbs can you use to complete this sentence?

To bring somebody up means to care for or raise a child until they're an adult.

Often it involves teaching them how to behave and giving them certain values.

For example, we wanted to bring up our children close to our extended family.

This phrasal verb is often used in the passive form, to be brought up.

Like in our example sentence earlier, I was brought up in the countryside.

Or she was brought up by her grandparents.

To grow up means to gradually develop from being a child into an adult, maturing physically and emotionally.