| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some phrasal verbs that use the word "bring." This is a list of verbs that I think is good for, maybe, intermediate or, maybe, upper intermediate to getting to advance the students. The aim of this lesson is to help you level up your use of the verb, "bring." This is not a complete list, but I've chosen a few that I feel are common and that I hope can help you improve how you use this verb. Let's get started. |
| Let's look at the first phrasal verb. The first phrasal verb is the expression, "bring forward." To bring forward has a couple of different meanings. First, we can use "bring forward" to mean to introduce an idea. You might hear this used to talk about concepts like in meetings or in presentations. When someone wants to bring something forward, it's used to talk about introducing an idea for something. We also use "bring forward" to talk about carrying something from the back to the front of a room. This is an expression that's used, again, in presentations, for example. If I'm presenting at the front of a room and I have something prepared at the back of a room, I might ask someone to bring that item forward. You might hear this, for example, in legal situations. If you like to watch police shows, for example, a lawyer who has prepared something might ask for that item to be brought forward, someone to bring that thing forward to the front of the room. |
| Let's look at another example. "We brought forward an idea for a new product." This means we introduced an idea for a new product. This might be in a meeting situation. There are these two kinds of uses for the expression, "bring forward," to bring something forward. |
| Okay. Let's take a look at the next phrasal verb. The next phrasal verb is "bring home," to bring home. To bring something home or to bring home means to carry something back to one's home. We use this for shopping. We also use this in sports, actually. We use it to talk about trophies in sports. If you win a championship or you win some contests, we say, "They're going to bring it home," or, "I'm going to bring it home," where "it" is the trophy or the prize from the contest. You'll hear this about shopping or just items in general you want to carry home. An example of this, "Can you please bring some milk home?" Very simple request. Bring some milk home, in this case. You can put the item between "bring" and "home" to use this expression. |
| Okay. Let's go along to the next phrasal verb. The next phrasal verb is "bring to light," to bring to light. To bring something to light means to cause something to become clear, to cause something to become clear. It's like you can imagine you are bringing a light on to something, and then because of that light you can now see everything very clearly. That might be a helpful way to remember the meaning of this one. Let's look at an example. His lies were brought to light when important evidence was discovered. This is a fairly typical example of how we use "bring to light." Here, what became clear? His lies. "His lies were brought to light." That means his lies became clear, or the fact that he lied became clear at this point in time when important evidence was discovered. Another way to say this is, "When important evidence was discovered," or, "When we found some important information, we realized or it became clear he lied multiple times in the past." This is a common example. What became clear and why, or at what point in time. |
| Okay. Let's continue to the next expression. The next expression is "bring to mind," to bring to mind. This means to cause to remember, to cause to remember to cause to think of something as well. To bring something to mind. Let's look at an example. "This song brings to mind -" I'm sorry. "This song brings my high school dance to mind." My high school dance. Here, this song, it brings. Then, this is the actual phrase, my high school dance. This song causes me to remember my high school dance. This song makes me remember my high school dance, or it brings it to my mind. Brings it into my mind. This is an expression we use for memories a lot. |
| Okay. Let's go on to the next one which is "bring up the rear," bring up the rear. This means to be last, to be at the end of something. We use this a lot for contests, especially, like sports, a marathon, for example, or a horse race, for example, where there's a clear line up of people participating or animals participating. The person or whoever, or whatever animal is at the last, the final position, we say that that person or that participant, whatever, is bringing up the rear. They're last. They're final. An example, "An injured athlete is bringing up the rear in the marathon." In this case, it's a sporting event, a marathon. In this case, we're using the progressive, "an injured athlete is bringing up the rear." We might use this sentence when we're watching a marathon on TV, for example. This is happening now. An injured athlete is last in the marathon, essentially. Saying he or she is last sounds quite direct, but bringing up the rear, it sounds kind of more like that person is still continuing. They're still working, they're still making efforts, but they are in the last position, the final position. Here, this is in the progressive tense. An injured athlete is bringing up the rear. |
| All right. Let's continue to the next one. The next expression is "to bring something about." "To bring something about" means to cause something to happen, to cause something to occur. We use this when we're talking about cause and effect situations. Let's look at a very common example, "Pollution has brought about climate change." In other words, pollution has caused climate change to happen, has caused climate change to occur. This shows a cause and this shows an effect. "Has brought about" shows us this relationship. Pollution caused climate change. Though, using "brought about," I think, shows that over time it resulted in something. It's a little bit more time-sensitive, I think. "To bring something about" will help you show causes and effects, especially over a period of time that could be months or years. In this case, years, over a long period of time. To bring something about. |
| Okay. Let's continue to the next expression. The next expression is "bring something back," to bring something back. There are two common uses for this. They are, first, to cause someone to remember something. I'll show you an example of this. And, to return an item to a store. To return an item to a store is like I want to bring this back, or I need to bring this back to a store. With this meaning, you might also hear "to take something back." I need to take this shirt back to this store. That's an example sentence, "I need to bring this shirt back to the store." To look at the first meaning, though, about causing someone to remember something, "These cookies bring me back to childhood." This means the cookies here, the cookies have some nostalgia factor. The cookies are something the speaker enjoyed in his or her childhood. These cookies, maybe smelling or eating or making these cookies, causes the speaker to remember the experience of his or her childhood. These cookies bring me back to childhood. I feel like I'm in my childhood again. That's the feeling of this expression. "Brings me back to something" is a one way to use this phrasal verb. |
| Okay. Let's continue to the next expression. Next is "bring somebody down," to bring somebody down. This means to cause someone to lose confidence. It has a negative meaning. An example of this, "Don't bring your classmates down." You could imagine this as being don't bully your classmates or don't be mean, don't be unkind to your classmates, don't bring your classmates down. Another thing that you might hear is "Don't let someone get you down," like don't let your boss get you down or don't let your grades get you down. Don't let something cause you to lose confidence. That's another common way that we use this expression. "To bring someone down" is this loss of confidence. |
| Okay. Let's move along to the next expression. The last expression, actually, "to bring something up." Please be careful. This is different from "to bring someone up." To bring someone up, like bringing up someone's children. That means to raise. I think, some of you probably know that one, to bring someone up. "To bring something up," however, is quite different. "To bring something up" means to introduce or to mention a topic, often an unpleasant one. It's typically used for something we don't really want to talk about, or it's an uncomfortable topic, or it's difficult to talk about for some reason, but someone mentions it in a conversation. An example, "Management brought up our project delay in the meeting." Here, management, a managing team or a managing person, brought up (mentioned) our project delay, our project delay. This is the topic for discussion. This is probably something the speaker feels nervous about, or is uncomfortable about. We know that because this use "brought up." That sounds like it's uncomfortable. We tend to use this for uncomfortable topics, in this case, a project delay. There's some delay. There's some reason a project has not finished and the speaker probably does not want to talk about it, so they feel nervous. That might be why you could use "brought up" or "to bring to something up." |
| Okay. These are a few phrasal verbs that use "bring." There are others. There are lots of others. If you want to know more about how to use "bring" in phrasal verbs like these, I recommend checking out a dictionary. Of course, if you have any questions or comments, or want to practice making a sentence with one of these phrasal verbs, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye. |
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