The word ‘talk‘ can mean many different things. As a verb, the meaning is to communicate using words.

For example:

  • The children won’t stop talking.
  • I need to talk to my boss tomorrow.

 

Talk is a regular verb. The past tense and past participle is talked. Click here to find out how to correctly pronounce ‘ed’ in the past tense.

 

HOT TIP – The ‘l’ in talk is not pronounced, it is a silent letter.

phrasal verbs with talk

Phrasal verbs with ‘talk’ include:

  • talk around/round/into
    meaning – persuade
    example – My boss won’t give me a pay rise, I need to talk him into it.
  • talk back 
    meaning – respond rudely
    example – I got detention for talking back to the teacher.
  • talk down
    meaning – make something sound less important or stop someone jumping from a high place
    example – He talks down his role in the company but, I know he is very important.
  • talk down to   
    meaning – talk to someone in a superior way
    example – No one likes our supervisor; he talks down to everyone.
  • talk out of   
    meaning – persuade someone not to do something
    example – I’ve talked myself out of going to the pub. I need to save for my holiday.
  • talk over/through        
    meaning – discuss
    example – We talked over some ideas for the business. Next year we will go global.
  • talk up 
    meaning – make something sound more important/better than it is
    example – Molly has been talking up this band all month. I’m excited to see them live.

picture examples

phrasal verbs with talk

Let’s learn the meaning of the phrasal verbs that contain the verb ‘talk’ in more detail and see some examples in use.

phrasal verbs with talk - talk around/round/into
phrasal verbs with talk - talk back
phrasal verbs with talk - talk down to
phrasal verbs with talk - talk down
phrasal verbs with talk - talk out of
phrasal verbs with talk - talk over/through
phrasal verbs with talk - talk up

You can download a table of phrasal verbs with talk below.

Did you know that many idiomatic expressions (idioms) in English also contain a lot of verbs? Just like phrasal verbs, idioms are a major part of the English language (slang in particular). They are used constantly amongst native English speakers and are handy to know and understand.

Now you’ve learnt all the phrasal verbs with talk, how about learning the idioms with talk too?

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