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MAIRO VERGARA
ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE
Transcript ¦ Lesson 16
Hi, my name is Holden Harris and I’m located in Louisiana, which is in the
bottom half of the United States of America. Today I am going to talk to
you about three phrasal verbs. These phrasal verbs are ‘set apart’, ‘set
off’ and ‘speak up’. Each of them have a couple of definitions. ‘Set off’
actually has many definitions but I’m going to give you three examples of
how you can use each of these phrasal verbs. So let’s talk about the first
one.

‘Set apart’ can mean to distinguish or to be better than or different from

others. So an example sentence of this is if you were to say something
like

Tom’s perfect test score set him apart from the rest of his class.

In this example, let’s say that we have a classroom that has taken a test
and Tom actually made a perfect grade on it. Everybody else either made
lower than Tom or didn’t take the test or whatever but because Tom
made that perfect score - he was the only one, that set him apart. It
divided him from the rest of his class, ok. So again ‘set apart’ can mean
to distinguish or to be better than or different from others.

So here’s an example of how it can mean to actually be different from

others. Ah, this sentence says:

Pink uniforms really set the cheerleading squad apart from their
competitors.

So imagine a cheerleading competition and you have lots of different

teams. So this cheerleading team in particular has pink uniforms and no
other team has this pink color. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re
better than the other teams but because they have that pink uniform,

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they’re different. They’re set apart. Again, there’s a division. They’re

divided, just different from other people.

Now that’s not the only definition ‘set apart’ can have. It can also mean
to keep something separate in order to use it for a particular purpose.
This example sentence, listen to this:

Some apples were set apart for lunch and the others were saved for
dinner.

So let’s say that we got apples and again we want some for lunch and
some for dinner. So I’ve got four apples, I take two and I use them for
lunch. Take the other two and set them apart for dinner, ok. So in this,
I’m just keeping something separate. I’m just dividing something up. So
you can divide anything up, whatever it may be. You can divide up
money, divide up food, whatever it is that you may need to divide. So that
is ‘set apart’. Again, it can mean to distinguish, to be better than or
different from others in some way or it can also mean to simply keep
something separate, you know, from something else.

So let’s talk about ‘set off’ now - this is our second phrasal verb. ‘Set off’
has a ton of different definitions. I’m going to give you three of them and
I’m going to give you those three example sentences. And the first and
most basic one is to explode a bomb. So listen to this sentence:

The first atomic bomb was set off during World War II.

Okay, so if you’re familiar with history, you know that the United States
used atomic or nuclear bombs during World War II. And so, ‘set off’ can
mean to cause an explosion. You set it off. Of course, so that’s pretty
basic right there.

Another definition for ‘set off’ that’s really common is to ring an alarm.
So listen to this sentence:

The fire in the hotel set off the fire alarms.

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So in a hotel you’ve got a fire that starts and maybe there’s some kind of
sensor or detector that if it senses a fire, it’s going to ring the alarm. This
actually happened to me on vacation one time. There was a fire in our
hotel, I was in my room, alarms started going off and there was a big
scare. So it set off the fire alarm. So that’s to ring an alarm. Now I’ll give
you a quick tip on this too. You can also set off some other things. For
example, in the case of an alarm or like a fire, maybe you have sprinklers
on the ceiling that will, you know, bring water down to try to help calm
the fire. So you set off the sprinklers. Things like that as well.

But ah, and the last definition that I want to talk to you about for ‘set off’
is to start a journey. Okay, so to go somewhere. To begin travelling, if
you will. So an example sentence of this actually is:

The space shuttle has set off for the moon today.

The space shuttle has set off for the moon today. In this case basically a
space ship has launched and it’s travelling, it’s on its way to the moon,
ok. It’s started a journey. So ‘set off’. Again, three different definitions: to
explode a bomb, you could also use it to say that you’re ringing an alarm
or to start a journey.

So the last phrasal verb that I want to talk about is ‘speak up’ and ‘speak
up’ has two different definitions and they’re pretty easy to catch on to, I
would say. Ah, ‘speak up’ if you just imagine me, you know, something
going up and speaking basically, I’m going to mean to raise my volume.
Okay, so speaking up can be to speak more loudly. Alright, so an
example of this that’s really common if you’re talking to someone and
they’re talking really, really low and you can’t hear them, you may say,
and here’s the example sentence:

I can’t hear you, can you please speak up?

Okay? So I can’t hear you, can you please speak up? And basically that’s
telling someone, telling them hey can you talk a little louder? You know

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because I can’t hear you. Your volume’s too low. So that’s a nice way to
say it – tell someone to speak louder.

And another example of that is, you know, if you’re talking about
someone who is a little bit older, their ears aren’t as good, the example
sentence I have for you is:

Mr. Rodger’s ears are bad, so you’ll have to speak up when you talk
to him.

I actually had a boss named Mr. Jerry back in the, back in the day. And
this boss, he had a hard time hearing. And sometimes I would talk to him
and he would go like this. Meaning that he really couldn’t hear very well
and he needed me to speak up, to raise my volume. Okay, that’s the first
definition for ‘speak up’.

And the last definition and the last sentence I have for you today is
‘speak up’ can also mean to express your opinion. Okay, so this is very
commonly used and actually I’ll give you a saying that a lot of people say
and this is the sentence I have for you:

Speak up now or forever hold your peace.

Speak up now or forever hold your peace. And basically that simply
means let me give you a situation here. Let’s say that I say ‘Hey, what do
you want for your birthday?’. And you tell me ‘Oh I don’t know, I’m not
sure’. And I say ‘Well, speak up now or forever hold your peace’. That
means you got to tell me now or maybe we’ll never know and maybe I’ll
get you something you don’t want for your birthday and it’ll be too late.
So, basically, ‘speak up’ can mean to give your opinion, to say something
to me, you could do this in class, speaking up in class - give your
opinion, speaking up in Church to give your opinion. Many different
situations you can use this in. So that’s ‘speak up’ and again, two
definitions for it. The first just to talk more loudly. Think of raising your
volume – going up, and the other, simply to express your opinion.

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So those are three phrasal verbs you can use. Again they are ‘set apart’,
‘set off’ and ‘speak up’. Okay, now thank you for watching today. I hope
that I was able to teach you something and I’ll see you in the future. Have
a great day.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE