Learning Vocabulary: Phrasal verbs with 'turn'

Phrasal verbs with 'turn'

Rich: Pass us the remote, Jack.

Jack: What for?

Rich: We want to watch the match.

Jack: I’m watching this.

Rich: Come on. Turn it over. What is it? Is it on Netflix? You can watch it whenever you want.

Jack: It’ll be finished in a minute. It’s only Liverpool they never score in the first half.

Rich: It’s coming on now. Turn this off. Look there are the credits!

Jack: Alright, alright, calm down! Here you go.

Welcome - Going to the cinema

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich

Jack: and I’m Jack

Rich: and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast

Jack: Where we talk about football and help you with your English.

Jack: What’s happening this week, Rich?

Rich: In this week’s podcast, we’re going to talk about television and the cinema.

Jack: We’ll also look at some common words and phrases we use when talking about TV and the cinema and some phrasal verbs with the word ‘turn’.

Rich: Turn around a minute.

Jack: What? Why? 

Rich: Turn around.

Jack: Err ... OK.

Rich: Good. So, that’s one example of a phrasal word with ‘turn’ and we’ll look at a lot more in this podcast.

Jack: Right, Okay then. And, don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have this week’s football phrase for you to guess.

Rich: In the next section, you’re going to listen to two roleplays. In the both roleplays we are speaking about films and in the second we are outside the cinema.

Jack: Sounds good. Let’s do roleplay one.

Roleplay 1

Rich: Hey Jack. Have you seen any good films lately?

Jack: I saw a really good one the other day. It’s called They Shall Not Grow Old. It’s just come out.

Rich: What’s it about? I’ve not heard of it.

Jack: It’s directed by Peter Jackson who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s about World War One and uses lots of old footage. It adds colour to the old film and the words of the soldiers that were in the war. Jackson turns the old footage into something that looks really modern.

Rich: Is it a documentary?

Jack: Yes, and it’s brilliant.

Rich: It sounds good and I think I’ll have to check it out but I’m going to the cinema with my two boys.

Jack: Ahh! It might not be suitable for them. I think it’s got a fifteen rating. What about the Incredibles 2? I went with the whole family and we thought it was … incredible!

Rich: Oh yeah, this is a sequel, isn’t it? I remember the first one being absolutely hilarious. It was a massive hit at the box office, wasn’t it?

Jack: This one’s got really good reviews, too. I think it’s a much better family option and everything turns out well in the end!

Roleplay 2

Jack: Yeah, five minutes I’ll catch you up, guys. Rich always turns up a bit late. 

Rich: Hey, Jack. Sorry, I’m late. Where is everybody?

Jack: They’ve gone to get some popcorn.

Rich: What are we going to see?

Jack: They told me to let us decide. Let’s go and have a look at what’s on. All the films are up there on the posters.

Rich: I don’t mind what we watch as long as I don’t have to sit through Smallfoot again.

Jack: What’s that?

Rich: I watched it with the kids. It’s about a Yeti looking for humans. I wanted to turn it off after about five minutes.

Jack: OK, no kids' movies. What about fantastic beasts?

Rich: I thought we said no kids' movies. Isn’t that like Harry Potter?

Jack: I think it’s a bit darker and it’s got a really good cast - Johnny Depp and Jude Law are in it. The first one was a massive hit.

Rich: I’ve heard this one is a bit of a flop and I haven’t seen the first one and I hate watching sequels if I haven’t seen the first one. I won’t know what’s going on.

Jack: Alright, what about Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s all about the pop group Queen - you know the song ‘I’m just a small boy from a poor family …’.

Rich: No, I’m not a fan. Musicals are a real turn off for me and the audience will probably start singing and they might be worse than you!

Jack: There’s not much else on. I think we should go for Fantastic Beasts.

Rich: Look there. Special screening.

Jack: One night in Istanbul.

Rich: Never heard of it. Hold on. Directed by James Marquand. This is what it says: Gerry and Tommy are two loveable Liverpool cabbies who dream of bringing their grown-up sons to the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul.

Jack: Really?

Rich: Come on let’s get the tickets before they sell out!

Language Focus

Jack: Let’s start this section by looking at some of the vocabulary that we’ve used in the podcast that is connected to the cinema and TV.

Rich: We’re going to start with some language that will help you persuade someone else to watch or not watch a film. 

Jack: I said that the film They Shall Not Grow Old has just come out. To come out is a phrasal verb to mean released or published. 

Rich: When Jack says it’s just come out, he’s saying that the film is new. 

Jack: Two common words you hear in connection with the success of films are hit and flop. A hit is used to describe something that is a success and a flop is something that is unsuccessful.

Rich: Jack said that the first Fantastic Beasts film was a massive hit, but I said the sequel was a bit of a flop.

Jack: Sequel is another tricky word we hear a lot. A sequel is a film or story that continues from an earlier one.

Rich: You sometimes get prequels too, which is when a film or story is about things that happened before the first film or story.

Jack: When there are three films in the same story it can be described as a trilogy - like Lord of the Rings.

Rich: If there are more films it can be described as a film series or sometimes you hear the word franchise.

Jack: The word franchise is more connected to business. You often hear the Star Wars franchise or the Harry Potter franchise when talking about finance.

Rich: What about more words and phrases to persuade?

Jack: You can say ‘you should check it out’. Check out is a phrasal verb and it means to look at something because it’s interesting. 

Rich: To persuade people to watch a film, you might also say how good the cast is - the cast is the actors in the film, or how good the plot is, which is the story of the film, or it has a great script, which is the words in the film or the special effects are impressive..

Jack: We’ve got more activities to help you with vocabulary connected to film on the website page.

Rich: And if you haven’t seen it we’ve got a whole course about football and films on the Premier Skills website. Just hit the Live button on the Premier Skills English homepage and you will see the course with the title ‘Learning English: Football& Films’.

Sting

Jack: Now we’re going to look at some phrasal verbs with ‘turn’ that we used in this podcast. Let’s start with ‘turn over’ and ‘turn off’.

Rich: In the opening conversation, I wanted Jack to change the channel on the television and stop watching his film. 

Jack: Rich said, ‘turn it over’ and ‘turn this off’. 

Rich: Other similar phrasal verbs are ‘turn on’ which is the opposite of ‘turn off’ and ‘turn up’ and ‘turn down’ which mean to increase and decrease the sound on the television or other devices.

Rich: Earlier I asked Jack to ‘turn around’ which means to turn direction and face the other way.

Jack: In the first roleplay, I was speaking about the film They Shall not Grow Old and I said I thought it was amazing how the director had turned old film into something that appeared really modern.

Rich: The phrasal verb is turned into. It means to change something from one thing to another thing.

Jack: Other examples could be Bruce Wayne turning into Batman or Clark Kent turning into Superman.

Rich: Jack also told me to watch the Incredibles because everything turns out well in the end. The phrasal verb here is turn out which means happened in a specific way.

Jack: Another example could be: I baked a cake for the first time the other day and it turned out to be surprisingly good.

Rich: In the second roleplay, Jack said that Rich always turns up late. Here it doesn’t mean to increase the sound because like a lot of phrasal verbs it has more than one meaning. In this example, it means ‘arrive’.

Jack: That’s quite a lot of phrasal verbs: turn out, turn off, turn up, turn over, turn down … on the podcast page on the website we’re going to check your understanding of these phrasal verbs.

Task

Rich: This week’s task is to tell us about a film that you think we should all see.

Jack: Tell us why we should check it out. Does it have good reviews? Was it a hit at the box office? Does it have a good cast and a good plot?

Rich: Tell us in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Football Phrase

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us this week? 

Jack: Yes, I have, but first, our last football phrase. The phrase was 'appeal'. If someone doesn’t agree with something, they can appeal against the decision by making a formal request to the authorities for the decision to be changed.

Rich: Well done to Acicala from Spain, Lakerwang from China, and Luibomyr from Spain. You got the right answer!

Jack: This week’s football phrase is **** ********. This phrase means not concentrating at set-pieces such as free-kicks and corners and looking at the ball rather than the player you are supposed to be marking.

Rich: Quite difficult that one. Right, that’s all we have time for this week. Don’t forget to write your answers to the task and football phrase in the comments section below.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football!