Hey everybody, welcome back to Let's Talk, this is me Meera and today we are going to
take a look at few things that help you increase your vocabulary. Guys, yes we're going to
talk about some phrasal verbs today. What are phrasal verbs again? So phrasal verbs
are nothing but verbs combined with different prepositions or adverbs which change the meaning
of the basic verb completely and gives birth to something really interesting that you can
use in your sentences and in your conversations. And I have always said this guys if you're
someone who knows at least say 600 to 700 phrasal verbs you would definitely be a fluent
speaker in English. Well today is one such day when we are going to increase our vocabulary
with the base verb “call” and as you can see we have so many different phrasal verbs
just by using one verb and what is that verb? “Call”, okay? So let's get started you
guys. Now the first is “call away”. Call away, what does that mean? It means to ask
someone to leave a certain place okay and ask that person to go somewhere or to come
somewhere. So call away means ask someone to leave a place, okay? Now for example, “the
doctor was called away because of an emergency”. That means probably the doctor was at home
asleep okay and he gets a call due to an emergency and he was asked to call away from his home
that means he was asked to leave his place and go to the hospital because of an emergency.
Similarly, “the soldier was called away due to, because of a war situation” or any
emergency situation, right? To ask someone to leave a place. See how a simple verb call
combined with the word away can change the meaning completely and can make you even more
expressive. Now that's what is interesting about phrasal verbs. Let's take a look at
the next one “called after”. It actually means to give someone somebody's name. That
means to give someone the name of, the name of someone, okay? For example the new baby,
“the new baby girl was called after her grandmother”. Like I said usually when people
use their family members names, you can use this phrasal verb in the sentence like I said
the baby girl was called after her grandmother or “lily what a pretty name, she has been
named or she has been called after her grandmother”. That's how you can use it in a sentence. Let's
move forward and check what's our next phrasal verb. Next we have “call upon”. That means,
you must have heard this quite often when it comes to speeches and people trying to
formally invite someone for something, right? Familiar? Well if it is familiar or if it's
not, hear this out call upon means simply, formally asking a person to invite, to invite
someone formally, okay? So call upon means formally asking someone to do something, okay?
Not inviting particularly but to do something, right? For example “Jerry was called upon
stage to give a speech” or a word of thanks, right? So that means it was a formal situation,
it could be an office environment or something that requires the language to be more formal.
So call someone upon means to invite someone or asking someone to do something with a lot
of grace, okay? So let me call upon your favorite actor or teacher or trainer to give a few
words or a word of thanks or thank you, yeah? Well moving on we have “call off”. I think
this one is pretty common, what does that mean, right? Did you guess it? Okay, so to
call off means to just cancel an event or cancel a plan, okay? Or plan or activity,
okay? So “they called off the wedding” that means they canceled the wedding. They
canceled the event or the plan. “They called off the trip” or the trip has been called
off because of a certain problem or a certain situation an emergency situation that means
to cancel a plan. So if you want to cancel, if you want to say that the plan has been
cancelled or the event has been canceled, you want to say it in a much gracious way
and a little more smooth, then you will use the phrasal verb call off, okay guys? Let's
move forward we have “call out”. Call out. Our teachers call out our names, our
parents call out our names, we call out for someone. Well I've said it so many times now,
can you guess what it means? To call out means to shout out someone's name or to speak out
not someone's name but something, okay? To shout out or to speak out, okay? “We were
calling out for your name, but you couldn't hear us”. That means probably it was a bustling
area, nobody could hear each other's voices, you were trying to call out for your friend's
name but he couldn't hear you and he missed you, okay? So another example, “we saw you
the other day across the road, we try to call out for your name but you were pretty busy,
you couldn't hear us”, yeah? Okay guys, I hope you have understood call out, that
one was pretty easy. Moving on to “call for” something. Now in this case you guys
call for means to demand for something or a certain action or to deserve something,
okay? To call for means to demand for something or to deserve something. For example, “our
sales this year calls for a celebration” Our sales rate this year calls for a celebration,
that means you deserve, you did something well, you're proud of it and you're saying
that you deserve a holiday or a celebration, right? “Your victory calls for a celebration”
or calls for a toast that means you have done certain actions, it definitely demands for
a party or a holiday or a general celebration, okay? So you if at all you have any words
or any situations when you want to say that whatever someone has done it deserves or demands
for an action or particularly deserves a party or something, you can say calls for okay for
example, “it's the last day of our graduation, this calls for a party”, okay? Moving on
“call up”. Something that we do quite often, every day, right? So to call up means
to simply call someone, okay? To ring someone. “I called up Tom today, he said he cannot
make it, that's why we are calling off the plan”, right? So you called, I called up
Tom he said he was busy so we're canceling the plan. Call up someone… whereas “call
in” means to call somewhere. Like an office, right? So or a hotel? So to ring somewhere.
To call in, “she called in sick today” that means my colleague or my friend called
in the office and said because she is unwell she won't be able to make it. So she did not
specifically call me but she called office. That's why you use call in. Another example,
“let me call in the hotel and check if we can reserve a table or two seats?” right?
So call in a hotel but call up the manager in particular you got the difference guys?
Call someone versus call somewhere, perfect! Moving on, we have “call back”. It's as
simple as it sounds, that means to return a phone call, return a call. “Hey, I'm busy
right now, let me call you back after a while”, yeah? That means to return a call. Now that
one was simple. I understand that all of these were phrasal verbs but I have another phrase
over here that I've got for you separately and I know it's not a phrasal verb but I thought
this should be a part of this, why not? “Take a call” and this particularly means to take
a decision or to make a decision, okay? Take a call means making or make a decision, alright?
Probably you are confused, if you want to go out for dinner or not, go out or not and
you're confused and you can tell your friend if you're in a confused state of mind that,
“hey let me take a call on this later and tell you or inform you later about it”.
That means you would make a decision and call that person later. Or you got a job but you're
not sure if you want to take up the job, accept the job or not, so you can tell your parents
that “I'm actually in the middle of my indecision, I will take a call very soon.” That means
you will make a decision very soon, right? Okay so that's all I have with the word, with
the verb “call”. I'm sure that if you start using these phrasal verbs, your English
is going to sound so much more fluent you guys. So make sure that you're using these
in your sentences, okay? That's all for the day guys, I will be back very soon with another
lesson, another topic that interests you and helps you, okay? Until then keep smiling,
keep practicing, spread a lot of love, this is me Meera signing off you guys, bye.