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Hi, this is Melissa Faulkner coming to you from Durham, North Carolina.
Today we’re going to talk about three phrasal verbs: ‘make out’, ‘split up’
and ‘get over’. Now once we’re done talking about these three phrasal
verbs I think you’ll start to see there’s a connection between the three of
them that often refers to relationships; specifically, romantic
relationships. They sort of go together in that context. Each of these
phrasal verbs also has other meanings that can be used outside of that
context but you’ll start to see the connection between all three of them.
Now for each of these phrasal verbs, I’ll give you three sentences and
then I’ll give you an explanation about how to use that phrasal verb in
each of the sentences.

So, let’s get started on our first phrasal verb. The first phrasal verb is
‘make out’. Now often times in the context of a romantic relationship,
this means to kiss. If you’re making out with someone, you’re most likely
kissing someone. There’s also some other versions of this phrasal verb
‘make out’ and often times it means for things to go well for you. So if
you make out that means that you did well or that things turned out well
for you. So let’s see the context of this phrasal verb ‘make out’. Sentence
number one:

James inherited money from his wealthy grandmother who passed

away so he will make out pretty well.

So in this sentence James has a grandmother. She passed away and she
was going to give him some inheritance. Because she was a wealthy
grandmother, you can imagine that the inheritance was probably pretty
large. So James is going to make out well. James is going to end up with
quite a bit of money so he’s going to do pretty well. Let’s go on to
sentence number two:

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Carla and John won three out of four rounds in the tournament and
made out well with silver and gold medals.

So in this case, John and Carla are competing. Out of the four rounds in
the tournament, they won three of them. So they did pretty well and they
made out well because they got silver and gold medals. They did well or
things turned out well for them so they made out or that’s a different
version of ‘make out’. Sentence number three:

While they were making out, Kayla realized that John’s moustache
kept scratching her face too much.

Now in this sentence, ‘make out’ means sort of the romantic relationship
type of ‘make out’ which means that they were kissing. So you can
imagine, Kayla and John were kissing, John has a moustache, his
moustache kept scratching her face while they were making out or while
they were kissing. So you can imagine they would try to have to figure
this out. Either John’s going to cut his moustache or they will have to
figure something out. So this was the romantic relationship version of
‘make out’.

Let’s go ahead and move on to our next phrasal verb ‘split up’. Now this
can mean to end a relationship or partnership or it can mean to separate.
You’re splitting two things up, you’re separating two things, which also
refers to a romantic relationship when you’re splitting apart two people.
So let’s take a look at sentence number one:

Sammy and Jason were always fighting during class. So their teacher
had to split them up on different sides of the classroom.

So in this case, maybe Sammy and Jason are friends but they sit beside
each other in class but maybe they sort of pick on each other or try to
annoy each other during class. So they’re always disrupting the class so
the teacher decided to split them up. She decided to separate them on
different sides of the classroom. So in this case, it’s not a romantic

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relationship but it’ s separating two people – putting them on different

sides of the classroom. Sentence number two:

The company decided to split up into two smaller companies after the
executive team couldn’t agree on what product to sell.

Now in this case, you have a company. There’s maybe two different ideas
that are going around on the executive team. Maybe the CEO has one
idea, maybe the CFO has another idea and they can’t come to agreement.
So they decide that they are going to split up the company. They’re going
to separate the company into two different companies so that both of
those ideas can happen. In this case again, it’s not a relationship in the
romantic style but it’s a partnership that’s being split up. Let’s move on
to sentence number three:

Caroline and Jason decided to split up after Jason got a job offer and
had to move to California.

So in this situation, you can infer that Caroline and Jason were dating.
Maybe they lived in the same city. Now Jason got a job, he’s going to
have to move across the country to California and so Caroline and Jason
don’t want to be in a long term relationship so they’re going to split up.
We would also sometimes call this to ‘break up’. You were in a romantic
relationship but you decide to separate and no longer be in that
relationship. You’re going to split up. So you can see in that situation,
‘make out’, ‘split up’, those definitely both refer to a romantic
relationship.

Let’s move on to our third phrasal verb: ‘get over’. Again there’s a couple
of different versions of this phrasal verb ‘get over’. Some refer to the
romantic relationship, some or in other contexts. So let’s take a look at
sentence number one:

After they broke up, Liam couldn’t get over Janna, because she was
the love of his life.

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So again, Liam and Janna are in a romantic relationship. They broke up.
You can imagine maybe Janna broke up with Liam. So Liam’s feeling
pretty sad, he misses Janna. Maybe he didn’t really want them to break
up. So he can’t get over Janna. In this case, ‘get over’ means to recover
from something either emotionally or physically. So right now, Liam is
suffering from some emotional pain and he can’t recover from it. He can’t
get over Janna. It was way too hard of a break up for him. Or split up.
Let’s take a look at sentence number two:

It took aunt Shelly three weeks to get over her Bronchitis because her
coughing was so bad.

So in this case again you can see that ‘get over’ means to recover from
something physically. Aunt Shelly had Bronchitis, she was coughing a lot.
Because she was coughing a lot it took her a long time to get better. It
took her a long time to get over the physical pain, the physical sickness
that she had.

Let’s take a look at sentence number three:

Hayley had to get over the initial challenges of studying so that she
could do well in her first semester of medical school.

So in this case, Hayley is going into medical school. You can imagine that
Medical School is very difficult. You have to learn how to study. It’s
challenging to learn how to study for medical school because its different
than any of the other schooling that you’ve done. So in order to do well,
Hayley has to get over those challenges. She has to overcome or defeat
those challenges. So in this case, ‘get over’ is a little bit different because
you’re overcoming challenges. In this case, Hayley is overcoming the
challenge of studying for Medical School. So there are a couple of
different versions of ‘get over’. You can either get over something as in

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recover from an emotional or physical pain or you can get over

something by overcoming or defeating a challenge.

So you can see that all three of these phrasal verbs sometimes refer to
romantic relationships – ‘make out’, ‘split up’, ‘get over’, but they also
have other meanings in other contexts as well. I hope these definitions
and explanations of these three phrasal verbs were helpful and we’ll talk
to you soon. Thanks.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE