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Good morning. Welcome to today’s phrasal verb video. My name is Sonja
Berger and I’m chatting to you from Paarl in South Africa. We’re going to
look at three different phrasal verbs today. The first one is ‘ask after’.
The second one is ‘ask around’ and the third one is ‘pitch in’.
Let’s start with ‘ask after’. ‘Ask after’ means to enquire about the
wellbeing or the health or the progress of someone or something. Sample
sentence one:
Whenever I see Gabriella, she asks after Paulo and you.
Now it’s important to notice the difference between ‘ask about’ and ‘ask
after’. When you ‘ask about’ you may also be interested in the welfare of
someone but you could just be interested in gaining information about
that person. You could be curious about the person or wanting to pry to
find out personal information without really caring. But if you ‘ask after’
there is the sense of genuine concern for someone. You ask after
someone because you care.
Let’s look at the second sample sentence:
Well known author Neil Gaiman is reported to have said “you don’t
want to ask after the health of anyone if you’re a funeral director.
They think maybe you’re scouting for business”.
I just love his sense of humor and yes it can’t be easy to be a funeral
director; an undertaker. I also want you to note the grammatical
construction of the pronoun following ‘ask after’. We always use the
object form of the pronoun. For instance, you ask after her. She asks
after you. They ask after us. So use the object form of the pronoun.
And now for the third sample sentence and this time it deals with the
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welfare of animals, not humans:
She asked after the welfare of the tortoises in the enclosure.
Sample sentence four. I’ve roped in a young lady to illustrate this one:
He just asked after my roommate in his text…I think he has a crush
on her.
Before we step off the topic of the phrasal verb ‘ask after’, I want you to
take note of the fact that not every construction combining the words
‘ask’ and ‘after’ is in fact a phrasal verb. Sometimes ‘after’ is a
conjunction. In fact, very often it is a conjunction. In this sentence for
instance:
He only asked after he had gone ahead with the deal.
There are two clauses. ‘He only asked’ and ‘he had gone ahead with the
deal’ and those two clauses are combined using the conjunction ‘after’.
So in that sentence ‘asked after’ is not a phrasal verb.
Let’s move on to the second phrasal verb ‘ask around’ and its cousin ‘ask
round’. Now even though there’s only an “A’s” difference between them,
they have different meanings. To ‘ask around’ means to ask various
people, a number of different people in order to gather information. To
‘ask round’ means to invite someone, or to invite people – plural. So let’s
start with the first meaning which is to ask a number of different people
in order to gather information. Sample sentence one:
There are many long tail boat operators on Chu Lan lake in Thailand.
When you get to the pier, simply ask around and I’m sure you’ll find
someone – a boat operator – who’ll take you on a trip across the lake.
When you go on holiday it’s not always possible to plan everything
meticulously and in fact it might not be such a good idea because very
often you have experiences, interesting experiences upon which you
stumble because you didn’t plan it because you simply arrived, you asked
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around, you got some information and you discovered amazing little
places, little restaurants and wonderful experiences.
Second sample sentence - In this scenario, the young woman does not
want information but she wants newspapers for her project.
I’m running out of newspaper for my project, do we maybe have
some stashed somewhere?’… ‘No my darling, we used it all to clean
the windows but why don’t you ask around the neighborhood? Maybe
one of the neighbors will be able to help you’… ‘Okay’
Sample sentence three takes place in a fresh produce market:
Ask around and you will find fresh curry in the market.
(In the market) I wanted to buy fresh curry leaves in the Port Louis fresh
produce market. I asked around and then I was referred to this amazing
man. He was so friendly and he was keen to be photographed and I really
enjoyed the encounter.
Now let’s talk about ‘ask round’ – without the ‘A’ – which means to invite
someone. Here’s a sample sentence:
He asked his friends round to play Xbox’…
Remember that ‘ask round’ is usually more informal than ‘invite’. You ask
people round for beers or for drinks and snacks but you invite them for
dinner. And also, it’s important to take note of the grammatical
construction. The object is usually inserted between the verb and the
preposition. He asked his friends round. So the phrasal verb is split by
the object in this case the object is his friends.
Our last phrasal verb ‘pitch in’ has three different meanings. The first
meaning is to join others in order to help with an activity. The second
meaning has a similar sense but in this case you join others to contribute
part of an expense – I’ll illustrate it just now – and the third meaning is to
start to eat hungrily. So let’s start with the first meaning, which is to join
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others in order to help with an activity.
Sample sentence one:
My friends and I pitched in and weeded our neighbors garden after
she had fallen and broken her hip.
So this meaning is clear from the sentence – they pitched in, they
combined their forces, their efforts to help this neighbor. The second
sample sentence which means to combine your money, to contribute part
of an expense is:
We all pitched in to buy her a fantastic 21st birthday gift.
So in this case, instead of buying individual smaller gifts, they all
contributed part of the expense and they bought a lovely big gift.
The third meaning, as I just said is to start to eat hungrily:
Pitch in, there’s more than enough pizza for an army.
Before I say goodbye, let’s recap. We looked at three different phrasal
verbs today. The first one was ‘ask after’, the second one was ‘ask
around’ and ‘ask round’ and the last one was ‘pitch in’.
I really hope the lesson was useful and that you remember these three
phrasal verbs and use them correctly in the future. Goodbye.
MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE
