A phrasal verb is made up of a verb and one or two particles. The particles could be a preposition or an adverb.

For example, the phrasal verb 'stand up' is the verb 'stand' plus the adverb 'up', so 'up' is the particle. If you 'stand up to' someone, this means you challenge them. There are two particles here: the adverb 'up' and the preposition 'to'.

We often focus on the verb in a phrasal verb, but the particle can also be very useful to understand. In this series of video lessons, we're going to look at the meaning of the most common particles that are used in phrasal verbs. To help you understand, we'll see lots of examples together in context.