Let up – become less intense or slower

The rain finally let up. (slowed down, stopped)
The US economy lets up tremendously after the financial crisis.
The retail business lets up after Christmas as I expected. So I don’t let me down.
We can’t afford to let up in the fight against drug-traffickers.
McCain didn’t let up in the final days at the last election.

Let down – disappoint ; to fail to meet the expections of ; decrease ; lower

I wanted to go to Half-Dome, but I was let down by heavy rain.
I was waiting on tables. After serving a beautiful millionaire, I was let down by her 10 dollar-tip.
I know let you down when I didn’t do what I promised. I’m really sorry.
Gov. Mark Sanford admits affair,  ‘I’ve let down a lot of people’.

What are phrasal verbs?

Phrasl verbs are also called Two-part verbs, three-part verbs, and multi-part verbs. Phrasl verbs is different from just a verb and a prepositon, or a verb and an adverb.

When particles come together with a verb, a new definition is made. The particles change the original definition.

Prepositions and adverbs add information, but they don’t change the original defintion of the verb.

figure out = understand after much thought
look through = search for something
find out = discover or learn information
sort out = orginize something messy or complicated

Importance of particles
The boy looked through the keyhole. (It’s not a phrasal verb because “looked through” is additional information. In this sentence, ‘through’ does not chage the original meaning of ‘look’.)
The lawyer looked through the files. (‘looked through’ has the meaning of ‘search’. It changes the original meaning.)

Question : In above video lesson, which statement has a phrasal verb?
1) Jennifer is sitting on the couch and reading a magazine.
2) Jennifer likes to sit back and watch TV when she gets the chance.
The answer is 2). Sit back means ‘get comfortable’ or rest in a comfortable position.

Jennifer is thinking over what she wrote in her complaint letter. Was she ready to send?  (Think over means carefully consider before making a decision.)

Jennifer said good-bye and hung up.  (Hang up means end a phone call.)

Jennifer didn’t get around to vacumming until after 2 in the afternoon. (‘get around to’ means finally do after much delay)

This is a video clips for idioms related with the part of the human body. The original source of this video comes from Steve Ford at Pirvate english portal.com. In this video you can learn the following idioms ;

What is a big mouth?
My lips are sealed!
To mouth someone off
Chatterbox
It’s on the tip of my tongue.

Enjoy this video and leave a message below.

This is a video lesson from Steve Ford. He is a Canadian English teacher and owns a English learning website. You can take a test below.

Composed of – assembled or made out of something.

The story originally was composed of 4 colleage classmates.

This cloth is composed of a number of different kinds of fibers.

The committee is composed of people from every department.

1. suitable or used only during fair weather.  suitable for outdoor acivities.

2. present or dependable only in good times ; fair weather friends.

Chicago Cubs fans are not fair weather fans. (They support their team no matter what.)

I’m fond of chocolate. Eunhye isn’t fond of me, but I’m fond of her.

Why Sarkozy is not fond of being a Frenchman?

Cowboys are frequently, secretly fond of each other.

Why the world is inordinately fond of Beetles?