Academic Research: What are the top phrasal verbs to learn?

Phrasal verbs are essential for anyone who wants to master the English language, particularly in spoken English, they appear ever so often in daily conversations. For one reason or another, they are usually not the main focus of teaching in schools.

I have a few predictions I want to make.

1. There are too many phrasal verbs, which ones should I learn first?
2. Which ones are more useful, common and popular?
3. There are so many different meanings with the same phrasal verb. How to learn all?
4. Phrasal verbs are formal enough, why should we teach it?

No matter what the reasons are, it will be great to know which are the most frequently used phrasal verbs. Like I mentioned in the last entry Usage: "No" & "Not"? Is That Even A Problem?, it will be biased to make a claim such as "the most popular phrasal verbs" without stating the boundaries, and so, in this paper "Pointing Out Frequent Phrasal Verbs: A Corpus-Based Analysis" by Gardner & Davies (2008), they have only chosen the data from the British National Corpus which includes both spoken and written English data.

In their research, they have filtered out the some of the top 20 Lexical Verbs (LV) in phrasal verbs and achieved the following finding,

Then the authors continued to locate the number of occurrence for the actual phrasal verbs and obtained the following data, 

For me, I have narrowed it down to Top 10 among the top 20 lexical verbs functioning in phrasal verbs listed, top 10 combinations of phrasal verbs are:

Go on          -- 14,903 Carry out     -- 10,798 Set up          -- 10,360 Pick up        --  9,037 Go back      --  8,065 Come back  --  8,029 Go out         --  7,688 Point out      --  6,984 Find out       --  6,619 Come up      --  5,523 Total = 88, 006 Total  count in the research = 278,780 Which means that Top 10 account for 31.6% of the total number of phrasal verbs appeared on the British National Corpus (BNC).

This is an amazing finding because among 100% of the phrasal verbs used in this research from the entire BNC, 31.6% of it comes from these top 10 phrasal verbs!!!! So the next step is simply to learn the Word Senses ( = different meanings in the same phrasal verb).

The following table lists out the number of word senses found in the BNC, for examples, "Go on" has 5 different meanings, "Carry out" has 2 different meanings, "Set up" has 15 different meanings, and so on.

For the meanings of each phrasal verb, I will leave this for you to find out as a training, but if you ask me which are the phrasal verbs to learn first, I can now say, according to Gardner & Davies (2008) from their 

corpus research using data from the BNC, the Top 10, 20 or 100 are as listed above.

"An argument must have strong support to be convincing." -- Locky

Resources:

Usage: "No" & "Not"? Is That Even A Problem?  @ Locky's English Playground

http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2012/03/usage-no-not-is-that-even-problem.html 

"Pointing Out Frequent Phrasal Verbs: A Corpus-Based Analysis" by Gardner & Davies (2008)

https://www.twu.ca/Library/tqd_2008/VOL_41_2.pdf#page=105

Vocabulary: A Helpless Man Sponge Naitard @ Locky's English Playground

http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2011/10/vocabulary-helpless-man-sponge-naitard.html 

Usage: "No" & "Not"? Is That Even A Problem?

Image from blogspot

Never thought that these two words can be such a big issue. I've got the wind of a claim that English speakers seldom use the word "not" in both spoken and written English, and "no" is a more popular word.

I hope I've got the coldfront. 

I do not agree and I cannot agree.

First of all, talking from a common sense, how can any one language live without the word "not"? It is the basic word for negation, the foundation of logic!! Without "not", there will be no logic!

One might say we can select other words to express the opposite meaning, say, "happy" and "unhappy", "legal" and "illegal", "possible" and "impossible", but can you always do without the word "not"?

Just look at my earlier underlined sentence, how can I not use the word "not"? Use contractions?

"I don't agree and I can't agree."

You are still using "not" even though you don't sound it.

Next, the claim that "no" is a more popular word than "not" has to be proven in the form of Corpus Linguistics. However, I find that hard to agree on the claim simply because it is almost impossible to document the enough unbiased samples to reach such conclusion.

Image from amazonaws

For example, if a researcher collects formal emails or reports, then "not" will definitely have a much higher frequency than "no" as "no" is limited by one sentence structure in formal writing.

eg.

1. Our company does not hold responsibility for any loss or.... ("not" sentence, after auxiliary "do")
2. Our firm not only provides A but also B...  ("not" sentence, before a verb)
3. The board of management has decided not to continue with the pursuit of ...  ("not" sentence, after a verb)
4. There is no ground for such claim. ("no" sentence, before a noun)

How about in spoken English?

When someone asks you a Yes/No question, you can of course answer "Yes" or "No", and "not" will appear if someone uses "Not correct" or  which is not preferred generally as "Incorrect" sounds smoother and shorter, other choices are "Negative", "Nope", "Absolutely not" and many many more.

When collecting samples in order to determine more "no" or more "not", how is a researcher going to select his data without bias? For spoken English, which country's English speakers? Born native or proficient but not born native? What community? What situations? What occasions? What formality? And finally, what frequency?

Image from currentconfig

As teachers, making claims without detailed proof and research and teaching students what they "think" is correct is absolutely unprofessional. As a learner, we are bound to be influenced by correct and incorrect teaching, you should all bear in mind this fact and always think through the logic twice or thrice before having a concept inculcated into your head. 

Asking more is the key to great learning, don't learn blindly.

Vocabulary:
to get wind of sth -- see Slang: Red Hot Hong Kong Slang's English Equivalent (Updated)
Corpus linguistics -- (n)[U] the study of language as expressed in samples (corpora) or "real world" text.
formality -- (n) [U] when something or someone is serious and correct
inculcate -- (vb)  [T] formal to fix beliefs or ideas in someone's mind, especially by repeating them often


Resources:

Slang: Red Hot Hong Kong Slang's English Equivalent (Updated) @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2009/07/slang-red-hot-hong-kong-slangs-english.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_linguistics
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/formality_2
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/inculcate?q=inculcate

Game & Science: Angry Birds in Space!!!

Angry Bird Space
Image from Angry Birds

In my earlier entry, News & Science: Science News Digest (22nd Feb), I have already announced the soon-to-be released Angry Bird Space game, in today's entry, we will look at the gameplay from a physics point of view.

First, the gameplay on Galaxy Note.

Some of you might be scratching your head as to how come the bird will travel with such trajectory? Well, first, let the NASA astronaut teach you.

WARNING!!! VERY TECHNICAL STUFF BELOW!!! Still having trouble understanding? Here's the experiment by Dot Science trying to find out how the gravitational forces on both moons will act on the birds. Newton's Law of universal gravitation If you like to read a little about physics, here's the formula we all should remember back in those secondary school days -- the gravitational forces acted upon the bird by the two moons: (m1 and m2 are the mass of the moons, r is the distance from the centre of one moon to another, vector r is the constantly changing distance between the bird and the moons, G is the gravitational constant  =6.674×10−11 N m2 kg−2. ) Image from Wikipedia If this one doesn't make sense to you, then this one below for kinetic and gravitational potential energy won't make sense either, Basically, at any time, the total of kinetic and potential energy should add up to 0. K is the kinetic energy and Ug is the gravitational potential energy of the bird.

Image from gamerant.

If this is too technical and you don't feel like reading any of that, here's the conclusion from the experiment:

"Clearly, I need more data."

That means, it is so far inconclusive as to how the birds can fly like that because it doesn't seem to match the calculation in Physics, but looks like we will soon know it, when there are more videos of gameplay on YouTube.

For now, let's just wait. 22nd March is on its way!!!


Vocabulary:
gameplay -- (n) [U] is the specific way in which players interact with a game,[1][2] and in particular with video games.
trajectory --  [C] specialized the curved path that an object follows after it has been thrown or shot into the air
inconclusive  -- (adj) not giving or having a result or decision


Resources:
News & Science: Science News Digest (22nd Feb) @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2012/02/news-science-science-news-digest-22nd.html

[GALAXY Note] Exclusive Level - Angry Birds Space @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=10eHOnufWkA

Angry Birds Space: NASA announcement @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxI1L1RiSJQ

Angry Birds in Space @ Dot Science
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/angry-birds-in-space/

Newton's law of universal gravitation @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_force#Gravitational_field

Angry Bird Space Official Website
http://space.angrybirds.com/announcement/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/trajectory?q=trajectory+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/inconclusive?q=inconclusive

Technology: Great News For Galaxy SII Owners!!!

Image from Samsung

What is official always sounds better! The moment which Galaxy SII owners have long been waiting for has finally come!!!! The official Ice Cream Sandwich update is rolling out for Galaxy SII in South Korea today via Kies 2.0! And Locky's English Playground is of course bringing you the latest news on that!

Image from Samsung

If you can't read the news in Korean, you can always use Google Chrome's Google Translate to help. From the English report by Mobile Burn,

"The upgrade will be offered to South Korean users beginning on March 13, 2012. It will also be available to users in other countries, including Poland, Hungary, and Sweden, before arriving in other markets like the UK. Galaxy S II owners in the U.S. will have to wait until their respective carriers approve the upgrade before it will be made available to them."

It doesn't say when Hong Kong users will get their updates, but I suppose we can all try using Kies 2.0 today after work, and I am thinking, maybe if I download the Kies 2.0 in Korean, maybe I will get ICS tonight!!!!

Smokin'!!!!


Vocabulary:
smokin' / smoking -- (adj) hot, great

Resources:

Samsung releases Android 4.0 ICS upgrade for Galaxy S II in South Korea, Europe @ Mobile Burn
http://www.mobileburn.com/18896/news/samsung-releases-android-40-ics-upgrade-for-galaxy-s-ii-in-south-korea

@ Samsung
http://www.samsung.com/sec/ics/ics_main.html

@ Samsung
http://www.samsung.com/sec/ics/01_shw-m250s_ics_sec.html

http://samsungtomorrow.com/2388

Kies 2.0 Official Download @ Samsung
http://down2.local.sec.samsung.com/uploadimg2/comLocal/service/support/download/sw/Kies_2.2.0.12014_18_8.exe

Technology: The new iPad, Blessing or Curse?

"Today we are announcing the new iPad and it is amazing!" -- Tim Cooks
Image from technologyreview

Apple's Tim Cooks announced "iPad 3" "The new iPad" on the 8th March, 2012 to celebrate the birthday of Locky's English Playground, International Women's Day,  the end of "iPad + number" naming system.

And here is what you all have been waiting for!!!!! The new iPad!!!!!

"Today, we are announcing the new iPad and it is amazing!" -- Tim Cooks

This is great, isn't it? But I'm afraid this is not what you get.

What will you get?

I tried so hard to find the full-length conference on YouTube and there was almost none! Netizens cut off Tim Cooks as quickly as possible and moved on to the specification part, which reflects how the public think about the performance of Tim Cook's speech.

But Locky is good at researching, so here's what I've found. (Start from 8:17)

Tim Cooks said, "Today, we are announcing the new iPad and it is amazing!" I don't remember Steve Jobs using such a word when he announced the revolutionary iPad, and he didn't! (Start from 5:38)

What does that mean? I think fans and English Players of this Playground knows the meaning of "Good wine needs no bush" by William Shakespeare as I have used it several times, it means that if the iPad 3 the new iPad is really good enough, you don't need to say it is "AMAZING" by yourself, the public will say so. If you are not bored to death by Tim Cooks' speech, go on and watch the Part 3,4,... and you will be sick of the word "AMAZING" forever!!

Okay, let's move away from the speech, how about the specifications?

1. 2048x1536  Retina screen resolution 
2. A5X faster processor
3. Support 4G LTE
4. 5-megapixel camera 
5. weighs 650g, 51g heavier and thicker than iPad 2 and the new Toshiba tablet.

What do the Californian public think about the iPad 3 the new iPad?

Is it a blessing or a curse? For consumers, of course it is a blessing, technology always goes forward, no one looks back, if you are still engaging in the old PC ICQ, you are not wrong, but you are out.

But for the web designers and programmers, this is a curse!!!

Image from technologyreview

Image from technologyreview

What they mean is, because of the increase of resolution, they will need to make their photo images so clear and so big in sizes such that you won't be upset with the lousy quality images when using the iPad 3 the new iPad. And that could mean, 16Gb isn't going to be enough.

Those who are thinking about touting the new product, 16Gb may not be the good choice this time round.

Vocabulary:
good wine needs no bush -- (proverb) sth or sb with quality does not need any hard sell.
revolutionary -- (adj) involved in or relating to a revolution
tout -- (vb) [T] UK (US scalp) to sell tickets for something such as a sports game or theatre performance unofficially, usually at a much higher price than the official price

Resources:

New iPad 3 Concept Features @ YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s2oYUy_cVY 

Part 2. New iPad. Apple Special Event, March 2012 @ YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlaEx366dCo&feature=youtu.be&t=8m18s

Apple Announces iPad (Part 1 of 10) @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kplxBc2iw8M

People: Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2011/03/people-steve-jobs-2005-stanford.html

New 4G iPad 3 Heavier Than iPad 2 @ Smart House
http://smarthouse.com.au/Home_Office/Notebooks_And_Tablets/R3V8C7K8

What are consumers saying about Apple's new iPad? @ USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-03-08/ipad-consumer-reactions/53421854/1

New iPad Means Even More Cumbersome App Downloads @ Technology Review

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27634/

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/revolutionary_1?q=revolutionary+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/tout_2 

Message: Locky's English Playground Is Celebrating Cherry Blossoms Festival 2012

Image from Locky's English Playground

Some smart English Players might have noticed the new theme for our Playground logo and background (PC version only), and yes, you are right!! We are celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival 2012 for the first time!

So don't get me wrong, these are Japanese Hanji, not Chinese.

"But they are also Chinese characters!!!"

Well, tomato-tomato! (Read as /təˈmɑː.təʊ/-/təˈmeɪ.t ̬oʊ/)

Cherry blossoms at the Tokyo Imperial Palace
Image from Wikipedia

Here's something to learn about the flower-viewing festival from Wikipedia,

1. "Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree.
2. Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the sakura zensen (cherry blossom front) as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news programs.
3. The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April.

Okinawa Prefecture
View Larger Map

Vocabulary:
tomato-tomato! (read as /təˈmɑː.təʊ/-/təˈmeɪ.t ̬oʊ/) -- meaning, same same.
Hanami -- (n)[U] flower viewing, hana is flower in Japanese


Resources:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/tomato?q=tomato

Flower viewing -- Cherry blossom @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_blossom#Flower_viewing

Okinawa @ Google Map
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Okinawa+&hl=en&ll=27.751608,129.671631&spn=6.559883,11.634521&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.677964,93.076172&hnear=Okinawa+Prefecture,+Japan&t=m&z=7