Phrasal verbs are idiomatic expressions that consist of a verb and a postposition and form a new meaning that is often difficult for students to understand. The main meaning of the verb turn is to turn, return, change direction, spin, rotate. When adding postpositions up, down, off, away and others, the meaning of the verb changes. Its semantic coloring depends on the context in which the given word is used.
Phrase verbs turn with the postpositions up, over, on, off relate to regular verbs and when used in the past tense, the suffix -ed is added to them.
The meaning of phrasal verbs
Students are struggling with phrasal verbs. The difficulty in perceiving English phrasal verbs is due to a significant difference in the meaning of the progenitor word and the changed one that appears when used with the postposition. Turn up is a phrasal verb that, depending on the context, can change its meaning unpredictably. And if its primary meaning is “turn”, then in combination with up this word can play a completely unexpected role. In those cases when the postposition up is close to the primary meaning “up”, the phrase verbs turn are easier to understand.
Examples:
- It was cold and she turned up her coat collar. - It was cold, and she raised her coat collar.
- The ends of her red shoes turned up and looked funny. - The socks of her red shoes bent up and looked funny.
Turn phrases up
Turn up phrases are often used in figurative meaning. This causes some difficulties both in communication and in translation. These values must be remembered:
1. Increase the volume, increase the voice, increase the level of pressure of water (gas), air flow.
- He turned up the volume and I could hear every phrase. - He increased the volume, and I could hear every phrase.
- We turned up the volume to high levels and enjoyed the magic of romance. - We increased the volume at full power and enjoyed the magic of romance.
- It is stuffy in here. I must tell Kate to turn up the air. “It's stuffy here, I have to tell Kate to add air.”
2. Come, appear (often suddenly).
- Bill turned up unexpectedly. - Bill came unexpectedly.
- Sorry, but Dorothy hasn't turned up yet. “Sorry, but Dorothy still didn't show up.”
- She even doesn't want to turn up. “She doesn't even want to come.”
- My new neighbors turned up in early June. - My new neighbors appeared in early June.
3. To find something (often by chance), to discover.
- Police seachers did not turn up any suspicious subjects. - The police did not find any suspicious items.
- It is difficult to turn up something in this dark room. - It's hard to find anything in this dark room.
- At last I have turned up this house! “Finally, I found this house!”
- I was unable to turn up my garage keys. - I could not find the keys to the garage.
Synonyms and Antonyms
Turn up phrases have an extensive range of synonyms and antonyms. They are used depending on the usage situation and the style of the text. Verbs are often used as synonyms: increase, amplify, boost, raise, appear, access, detect, expose, find out. Antonyms: miss, lose, overlook, mislay, pass over, misplace and others.
Turn turn down, respectively, has the opposite meaning: quieter, lower voice, turn off, refuse, reject, decrease and others.
Turn - phrasal verb examples whose use can be found both in oral colloquial and in written literary speech. Learning a foreign language requires patience and perseverance. English phrasal verbs are very specific. To read them will help reading fiction and periodicals, watching video files. And, of course, a very important stage in the study is direct communication with native speakers.