Getting away with it

I never realised how weird-ass the English language is until I started teaching it. Take phrasal verbs. I didn't even know they existed, we imbibe them with our mother's milk but they cause your average English language learner nightmares, there's whole dictionaries dedicated to them. Do you know what they are?

Okay, imagine that you are explaining the verb 'run'. Simple enough, you might mime someone running to your foreign student, easy, they understand run.

Then they show you a sentence that has utterly baffled them in this English book they're reading, it says 'We've run out of coffee.' They still have the image of someone running in their head, and it makes no sense. Following the verb with a preposition changes the meaning utterly - here 'to run out of' means 'to finish' (to which your poor student might say,'Then why can't you just say finished'?)

Consider these:

Run into (to meet)
Run up (to make)
Run through (to practice)
Run down (to insult)
Run off (to print)
Run on (to talk a lot)

Or these -
get into classical music (enjoy)
get up the nerve (summon)
get round to it (procrastinate)

and my personal favourite for confusing foreigns

get away with (to escape without punishment)

'You know, it's like a thief who escapes without punishment, he gets away with the money' you explain.

They just about grasp that as an expression, but then they read 'Kylie Minogue is the only woman in her thirties who can get away with gold lame hotpants' and they give up in despair and decide to go and learn Japanese instead, it's easier.

Talking of getting away with it, one Tony Parsons book is set in a language school. He has a beginner Japanese language student utter the phrase 'Don't take it out on them.' Not just a phrasal verb, but one followed by two prepositions. Tsk tsk Tony.