English Phrasal Verbs - Ease Up On, Eat Away At
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What phrasal verbs are introduced in this episode and why are they useful for learners?
Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode. I hope you're doing great today. I hope you're ready to learn some new phrasal verbs. In today's episode, we're gonna look at the phrasal verbs ease up and eat away at. So let's first start with ease up or ease up on. You'll often hear it with the on at the end as well. So this phrasal verb means to reduce intensity, pressure, speed, or severity. So basically, you're reducing how intense something is. For example, I could say he eased up. On the gas when he saw the police behind him. So, in this sentence, the gas is referring to the gas pedal, the pedal in the car that makes your car go forward and go faster. We can call it the gas. So if we say that he eased.
Eased up on the gas, we're saying that he started to reduce the amount of pressure. That he was putting on the gas pedal. He wanted to slow down because he saw the police behind him and he didn't want to get a speeding ticket. So he eased up on the gas. Let's talk about some situations in which you'll hear this phrasal verb used and in which you can use. Use it as well. One thing that I think of when I think of this phrasal verb is pain.
How does “ease up (on)” describe reducing intensity in everyday situations?
So when you experience pain, and then let's say you take medication like painkillers or something, your pain hopefully eases up. It is not as intense. It reduces the intensity of the pain goes down. Your pain eases up some after you take pain medication. Or maybe you don't take pain medication, but the pain still eases up after a while. After your body uh starts to heal and adapt, and you don't feel the pain as intensely anymore. Um I also thought of rain. So we might say that rain eases up. Uh let's pretend there's a big storm, there is a lot of rain coming down. And you're just waiting for the rain to ease up. so that you can go outside. You're waiting for the rain to uh reduce some, you're waiting for the storm to die down, you want the rain to ease up so that you can go out and do things outside.
Another thing that can ease up, hopefully, after a while, is a recession, an economic recession or a depression. uh economies go through recessions and hopefully after a short time the recession can ease up Or the depression, which is a more severe recession, can ease up and things can uh become better again and people will hopefully be in a better position economically, financially, once this eases up. Also, your workload, think of Your job, the work that you do. Sometimes there is an intense period of work. Maybe in your job, there is a certain season or a certain time during the year when there's more work, maybe towards the end of the year or something, and the workload is really intense.
When can “ease up” be used to talk about pain, weather, or economic downturns?
And then this workload eases up. once that season is over. Once you've delivered that project, you've finished whatever that task was, the workload eases up some. So uh that's another thing. uh I also thought about human relationships. We sometimes use this phrasal verb when talking about a relationship between Two people, uh, typically like father-son, that's maybe the first thing that comes to mind. So fathers can sometimes be very hard on their sons with the expectations that they have for their son, or also a father-daughter, or mother-daughter, or mother son. Son relationship as well. Um, but one of the stereotypical uh relationships in which a parent is really hard on their child is a father being hard on their son, meaning they expect so much from them.
They want them to succeed and work hard and do everything. That's possible to do well in life, and they expect their son to work as hard as they did. And sometimes they need to just ease up a little bit on their son. They might be too hard on them. Or maybe the mother needs to ease up a little bit on her daughter. and the expectations that she has for her daughter. Sometimes parents need to reduce the amount of pressure that they're putting on their kids. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Parents can sometimes put a lot of pressure on you to succeed, and it's hard to uh feel this uh pressure and these expectations uh from your parents.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What phrasal verbs are introduced in this episode and why are they useful for learners?
0:00–1:55
2
How does “ease up (on)” describe reducing intensity in everyday situations?
1:55–4:32
3
When can “ease up” be used to talk about pain, weather, or economic downturns?
4:32–6:53
4
How can parents, teachers, or coaches “ease up” on people they supervise?
6:53–8:58
5
What does it mean to “ease up” on personal habits like exercise or hand‑washing?
8:58–10:43
6
What does the phrasal verb “eat away at” mean and how is it used figuratively?
10:43–14:08
7
Which everyday expenses can “eat away at” your finances?
14:08–16:45
8
How can negative emotions or physical factors “eat away at” a person’s well‑being?
16:45–17:22