Most young learners of English are unsure as to what kind of language they are supposed to write. Should strong and impressive words be constantly and consciously added for a grandiloquent effect? Or should they use more easily understandable expressions and familiar words to express their thoughts? Actually, nowadays the trend is towards writing a simple and clearly understood language, using words that are generally spelt and pronounced correctly since they are read and heard more often.It is, however, important that whatever one puts into words should be written and spoken in an interesting way with the help of standard idiomatic expressions. Phrasal verbs serve just this purpose. They are very common to both written and spoken English. They add a unique flavour to the language while at the same time keeping it simple and clear in its meaning.

In fact, phrasal verbs are a lot of commonly used verbs that undergo a transformation in their original meaning when they are formed due to the preposition, adverb or particle that is attached to them. The list of phrasal verbs that follows would help you understand this process.

To play with somebody's emotions to consciously hurt the feelings of one who loves you
To put off a decision to postpone a decision for a later date or time
To carry out to do something
To cheer up somebody to comfort or console someone
To come into money to inherit money
To clear up matters to settle a misunderstanding

An interesting aspect of phrasal verb forms is that a single verb may have many different phrasal verb versions. Let's take the example of the verb break and look up its phrasal verb forms in a dictionary. It is interesting to note that there are no less than a dozen phrasal verbs formed from this single verb and each has a totally different meaning. The following list would make this point clear that how useful these expressions are and how easily they can be adopted in everyday language to express your thoughts in a variety of ways.

Break away from somebody to separate
Break down fail to work
Break in interrupt
Break into enter a building or a room by force
Break out start a war
Break off end a friendship
Break out of prison escape from prison
Break up a meeting cause a meeting to stop

The above examples make it amply clear that phrasal verbs do have an important role to play in present day English and, therefore, need to be mastered by you. Regular reading of newspaper and magazine articles along with world class literature would give you an automatic head start. Apart from this make a decided effort to look up the phrasal verbs of different everyday use verbs in a standard dictionary. The dictionary would also give you their correct usage. You may first practise this usage by making individual sentences. If you type these sentences on the computer it would help you correct your errors if there are any. Very soon you will find yourself using the new vocabulary you have so systematically learnt so that soon it becomes a part of your written and spoken language.