1

Hi, my name is Holden Harris and I am from Louisiana in the southern

part of the United States and today I am going to talk to you about three
phrasal verbs that you can use in different situations. The first is ‘open
up’, the second is ‘tie up’ and the third is ‘fall for’.

So let’s take a moment to look at the first one I want ‘open up’. So I’m
going to give you three example sentences and ‘open up’ has many
different ways that you can use it. There are more than the ones I’m going
to tell you here. But I’m going to give you three of the most common so
listen to this real fast. The first sentence I have for you is:

It felt great to hear Jessie open up about his troubling past

It felt great to hear Jessie open up about his troubling past. Now in this
example, ‘open up’ means to start to talk freely about something. So
when you open up, like maybe you talk about something that is very
personal to you; something that you’ve never told someone else. So in
this case, Jessie has dealt with some kind of difficult situation in the past
and I’m kind of happy that he’s telling me about his bad experiences. So
when you open up to someone, you’re going to tell them something that
maybe they don’t know. Maybe you’ve been hiding because you feel
embarrassed or you just don’t want to tell them. So that’s the first
definition.

And the second one I want to talk about is to begin shooting. So if you
open up on someone, it can mean that you get a gun and you start
shooting on them. So an example that I have is:

The military opened up on their enemies during battle.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE

 2

So imagine a war where two sides are fighting and the military just
suddenly starts to shoot ‘bang, bang, bang’, So they open up or ‘open
fire’ you could also say, on their enemies.

And the third one is very basic if you’re talking about a shop or some kind
of store. A third definition could be to open up a shop or business for a
day. So an example sentence I have for you is:

The pet shop is going to open up at 8am.

I actually used to work at a pet shop and this is a true story so we opened
up the store at 8am. Customers came in, even if there were workers there
before. Let’s say that I showed up to the shop at 7 to clean things up and
get things ready. Once the store actually opens up, that means that the
doors are open and customers can come in, buy whatever they need, that
sort of thing. So that is ‘open up’.

Now the second phrasal verb that I have for you today to talk about is ‘tie
up’ and ‘tie up’ also has several different meanings so let’s go through
some of these. The first one, I have a sentence for you:

I tied up my dog so that he could not escape from my backyard.

So not every backyard has a fence and if you don’t have any way to make
sure your dog stays there, they’re most likely just going to run away. So
you want to tie them up. And the definition of that is to fasten something
securely. So, just tie anything up. So basically what, you could use a rope
or a chain to tie your dog to a fence or tie it to a post. To fasten it to
make sure that it doesn’t get away. So to fasten something securely.

The second definition I have for you is to stop someone from doing
something. So here’s an example sentence for you:

Jimmy was not able to attend my wedding since he was tied up with
work all day.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE

 3

So in this scenario, Jimmy has to work very, very hard this day. Maybe his
boss gave him a ton of work to do and I have a wedding. But he can’t
attend because he’s tied up with work. So he’s prevented from going.

Okay and the last one I want to talk to you about is ‘tied up’ can also
mean to block a road. Okay, usually it deals with some kind of traffic
situation. And an example sentence of that could be:

A traffic accident tied up the road for several hours.

So let’s say there’s a crash on the freeway, the interstate or even

downtown and there’s police officers and there’s cars in the middle of the
road and the traffic is backed up. There’s a traffic jam. So the traffic is
tied up. Okay, so you can be tied up in traffic in that sort of situation. So
those are three ways you can use ‘tie up’.

And ‘fall for’ – I have two definitions for that. And one of them, the most
basic is to be attracted to someone or to fall in love with them. Okay, so
an a example sentence of that is:

The first time I saw Bailey, I knew I would easily fall for her.

So let’s say there’s a girl named Bailey that maybe I, you know, I see her,
and you see this a lot of times in chick flicks and different kinds of
movies where there’s a girl and a guy and they see each other for the first
time and they are instantly attracted. Okay, and so they instantly fall for
each other. So, that can be an example - to be attracted or to fall in love.
Also I could say:

I easily fall for girls with brown hair and brown eyes.

So again that means to be attracted and so that would mean that girls
with brown hair and brown eyes, you know, I like them a lot. As compared
to blonde or someone with blue eyes. You know, maybe I don’t like that
so I fall for girls with brown hair, brown eyes.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE

 4

And the last sentence I have for you: ‘fall for’ can also mean to be tricked
into believing something that is not true. Okay, so any kind of trick and
the simplest way to explain this is through a magic trick. Okay, so what I
would say is:

My little brother always falls for my magic tricks.

So let’s say I have a little brother and I have a lot of card tricks that I do.
And of course, us adults or kids, you know, some kids – maybe they don’t
believe magic tricks but some very, very young kids do. So you can trick
them and they fall for that trick. They believe that maybe you really are a
magician; maybe you really do have some kind of magical power.

There’s one simple thing that my grandfather and a lot of people, I even
actually did this to my younger brother, I would do this thing where I grab
his nose and I say ‘I got your nose, I got your nose’ and they say ‘hey give
me my nose back, give me my nose back!’ So they fell for that trick, they
really thought I would steal their nose. Okay, so they fell for that. So again
that last definition is to trick someone into believing something that is
not true.

But anyways, so those are three phrasal verbs that you can use again
‘open up’, ‘tie up’ and ‘fall for’. So I hope that you learned something
today. Thank you for watching and I will see you next time.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE