Phrasal verbs are a verb + preposition, adverb or particle. Teaching phrasal verbs is notoriously difficult because the verb often bears no relation to the meaning.

And yet, phrasal verbs are everywhere in English.

And so, on some deeper level phrasal verbs must make sense. We may not be able to explain adequately how we know what they mean but we do know what they mean. For example, as children we didn’t struggling to remember the difference between ‘to take up’ and ‘to take on.’ We...