Customer Reviews

Ultimate Phrasal Verb Book, The

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
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Get ready for a memorable showdown! Prepare to meet write off, check in, chat on, show up, kick back... and even more two-headed creatures that Anglophone people call Phrasal Verbs!

I had sought a textbook specialized in phrasal verbs for a very long time and this one is the first I found that deserves this appellation. You will find tons of phrasal verbs in there, almost 400, among the most popular.

The book is divided in 40 units or so containing a dozen verbs. Quick grammar rules relative to phrasal verbs introduce each unit. Here are treated, little by little, the following issues which are salient characteristics of the phrasal verbs, i.e. What is a particle? Is a particle always separable? How to make the difference between a particle and a "vulgar" preposition? Where is the accentuation of a phrasal verb? Is it possible to find a common abstract notion between some meanings of verbs that share the same particle (e.g. break in, call in, give in)? Yes, you'll have the answers to all these riveting questions!

In each unit, each verb is followed by its inflected forms (gerund, past and participle). Its different meanings are described and you'll see that sometimes the particle of a verb can go from a non-separable state to a separable state depending on the sense given to the verb! A couple of practical examples illustrates each meaning.

Now, exercises! You'll find a lot of them in the book. Five, six, sometimes more per unit, including a recapitulation exercise using verbs that you studied in previous units, so that you can train your memory and check your knowledge.

A unit will take you quite a certain time and sometimes you'll need up to 1 hour 1/2 if you do them seriously. Perhaps my mistake was to try hard to complete a whole unit in one time. Because of that, I admit I felt discouragement from time to time, especially because I had to interrupt my working session for domestic or professional reasons. If you don't get time, make two or three exercises a day and the day after, review the main points and carry on your training.

You'll quickly realize that mastering phrasal verbs is no child's play and requires steady and hard work. But it's a fascinating world and it's so funny to see the power a single particle can have over the meaning of a common verb and hence, over a sentence :)

This book is a premiere. If you already enjoyed it and are looking for a useful complement, buy the Cambridge international dictionary of phrasal verbs, it will give you a pretty thorough overview of the power of these verbs. But I would suggest it for people with at least an intermediate level.

If you are serious about learning the English language as a non-native learner, you'll enjoy this book. It covers the subject thoroughly, with a more practical approach than others. I think this book is the best because you learn phrasal verbs in contest, as they are used everyday. An academic approach can be misleading, and useless, for the non-native learner. The approach is very user-friendly, and intuitive. Very good for intermediate and advanced learners.

An excellent workbook for learning phrasal verbs in English. Its format is easy to understand, and a number of exercises are provided in each unit to help students master the phrasal verbs they have learned in the unit. However, I have found quite a few mistakes/misprints in the answer section. Some are minor: verbs and particles are separated where they should be put together one after the other; others a bit more serious: a phrasal verb that is appropriate in meaning but not covered in the given unit is offered as an answer to the quiz, or simply wrong ones are provided. Otherwise, I would have given 5 stars. I hope that there aren't as many mistakes/misprints in the text itself, and that the publisher will correct them for the next edition.

I've just come from a tutoring session with an adult Russian student; she was so pleased with this book that I let her keep my copy and returned home to order another for myself, its modest price being yet another inducement for purchase. The book is lucid, well-organized, and thorough. While I explain by paraphrase, analogy, and mime, here the phrases are defined precisely, with variations made explicit. As a native speaker, I found myself not only informed but also delighted by some of the book's definitions. It seems to cover the most common phrasal verbs non-native speakers encounter and understand in context but are otherwise flummoxed by. For a student who speaks competently but wants to "sound more American," this book is an ideal resource.

Others have aptly described the contents of this book, but I would like to join in the chorus about the book's popularity with students. I taught ESL at the university level for over 20 years and never found a book as popular as this one for the teaching of vocabulary. Now I'm teaching as a volunteer at my church where all of our students are Spanish speakers. Because of the high number of cognates in English and Spanish, many Spanish speakers can adjust their ear a bit, making it possible to recognize those words which we share in common from the Latin heritage of the old Roman Empire and the lingering influence of Latin throughout the Middle Ages. However, they struggle with the Anglo-Saxon component of English vocabulary, which is huge and still the basis of daily conversation in English. This book was actually discovered by one of my students, who is now a U.S. citizen with about ten years of residency here. I hesitantly started using it as in all my years of ESL I never did vocabulary this way, but this book has been a huge hit with all of the students who have seen it. They asked me to order them copies from Amazon and have even asked me to order one for friends who do not attend the class! One woman has a college-age son who has graduated from high school in the U.S. and has attended some college classes. She says he is often hard to motivate where study is concerned, but he loved the book so much he told his mom he wanted to keep it and could she please buy another one for herself! Every week they say how much they are learning from this book. They are assigning themselves homework from the book and sharing with each other what they learned on their own throughout the week. On numerous occasions they have said they have heard their boss use one of these phrases but never knew what it meant before and, thus, regard the book as a lifeline. Despite the long time they have been in the U.S., they were not conciously aware of the phrasal verb concept and, as a result, had been focusing on the lexical word rather than the particle/preposition, which, of course, is what makes the meaning of the word. The hour and a half flies by when we use this book. Once they catch the meaning of the word, they love to share examples from their own lives of incidents where a phrasal verb would aptly express what happened. In short, if you have hesitated with this book because you think it might be dry or unorthdox in methodology, it would certainly at least be worth a try. Every Sunday as I'm driving to the class, I am confident we will have a good lesson with the content of this book.

Focus on about 450 well choosen phrasal verbs.
Escellent choice of typical sentences in which the phrasal verbs are used
Excellent recap exercises at the end of each chapter that force you to remind Phrasal verbs defined in previous chapters.
Some explanation for phrasal verb meaning not absolutely clear (just about 10 on 450)
Some mistakes in the solution part.
Very good choice for foreign learners.

This book is fabulous! I host exchange students each year and they have all told me that this is the best gift I could have gotten them hands down. It clues them in to all the slang and phrases we use without thinking. Great find!!

A real comprehensive phrasal verb list.

Great book for anyone who wish to come to grips with two o three words verbs, at an upper intermediate/advance level ESL. Usually learning phrasal verbs is a difficult task for all students, because, on the very beginning we are introduced with just a few of them. An then, multiple meanings.

On this books, each chapter focuses on a grammar pivotal point, then a list of verbs related is shown, with easy to understand explanations, a clear in-context examples. Real life examples! A chapter ends with a lot of exercises. Some of them, goes back to previously learned verbs.

A total of 50 chapters covers more than 400 verbs and its different meanings and usage. 400+ pages, hundreds of exercises.

A must!

PEOPLE, I HAVE UTTLERLY SATISFIED WITH THIS BOOK. IT HAS REALLY SOLVED MY PROBLEMS AND I DO RECOMMEND YOU ALL.
GOOD STUDY TO EVERYBODY!!

Whether you use it as a reference book for supplemental exercises or as a regular component of your advanced ESL/EFL classes, English teachers should appreciate this systematic primer on phrasal (two and three word verbs). The short, focused 50 chapters also allow you to introduce the word by theme so students can better remember the verbs in a meaningful, if somewhat artificial context. Less, however, may be more in the classroom deployment of phrasal verbs since ESL materials should be practical. This book deserves to be included in the professional library of language schools, English teachers, and word mavens.