“TAKE IT OFF!” Learn English Phrasal Verbs for Clothes & Shopping

Do you like shopping for clothes? Is it one of your hobbies to go to the mall and try on clothes, buy some new outfits? Great. I'm going to teach you some wonderfully useful phrasal verbs all about shopping. Woo-hoo! So, let's get to it. Usually, when we go shopping, we look around, we see some clothes, we go, whoa, that looks nice. But you've got to see if it looks good on you. So, the first phrasal verb that we have is try on. Now, all these phrasal verbs I've written have the opposites, so it's like a double lesson in one. If you try on clothes, it means you put them on your body to make sure it's the right size. You're like, oh, okay, so it can be too small, it can be too big, or it can be okay. Sometimes it looks good, we say, on the hanger or on the rack, but when you put it on your body, you're like, wow, no, this, no, no, this is a no. So, we try on clothes to make sure that they suit us or they fit us. Now, the opposite of try on is take off. So, you try them on, you're like, oh, it's horrible. So, take off means remove, okay? Let's write that down. So, you remove the clothes. The next one has to do with things that we fasten. So, for example, my shirt has some kind of buttons here. I bought this in Hong Kong, by the way, it's pretty cool. So, if I do up my shirt, it means I fasten it or attach it. Oh, it's kind of stuck. Oh, God, that was hard. So, do up means to fasten something. You can do up your shoes, you can do up your pants, you can do up your buttons. That's about it. Something you have to fasten together. Now, yeah, unfortunately, the opposite is not do down. I'm going to do up and do down my butt. No, the opposite of do up is undo. So, you do something up and then you undo it. So, oh, I need to undo my shirt or I've eaten too much. I need to undo my pants. So, if you undo something, it means you release it. Let me release my pants. Button up, again, button up my shirt. It has to have a button, okay? You also have button up jeans. Those are so annoying. Oh, man. Button fly. They're called button fly, button fly jeans. So, instead of having a zipper, a zip is a button. What the point of that is, I remember when I was a kid, it was fashionable to have these button up fly jeans and to even cut the fly so everyone can see your buttons. Look at my sexy buttons. Just get a zipper, man. Nobody needs to see your buttons. So, you button something up, means you do it up. These are the same. And then unbutton. So, okay, hold on. This kind of makes sense. So, do up, button up, undo, unbutton. We can do this. Okay. Then we have something that I hate to do. I went to a Catholic high school, not Catholic, and the uniform, we had to always make sure that our shirt was tucked into our pants or our kilt, okay? So, tuck in your shirt means you put the shirt under your pants. Yeah, which sometimes looks cool, but sometimes it's very uncomfortable and does not look cool. So, I would always have my shirt untucked. That means flying free in the air. And the teachers or the vice principal or the nuns would come and go, Ronnie, tuck in your shirt. And I'd be like, you tuck in my shirt for me. But they didn't. But to tuck in your shirt means to stick it in your pants and look cool. I mean, it's up to you. But comfort, untuck that, baby. Let it fly free in the air. These ears, only for shirts. Yeah, because you can't tuck in your pants. Okay. So, these guys are only for shirts. And in very formal work settings, most times you got to tuck in your shirt, maybe wear a belt and a tie. Oh, God, so uncomfortable. And button and unbutton can be for shirts or pants. Okay. These are only for pants. You got to pull up your pants. So, when you're trying them on, you get your leg in and you pull them up. Okay. So, it means literally you're pulling them up on your body. And then you're like, oh, God, these are wonderful. Let's buy these. You got to take them off. You got to pull your pants down. Also, if you're getting undressed, you got to pull your pants down. Pull down. So, pull up means to basically put on or wear. And pull down means to remove. And these are, again, only for pants. Pull up your shirt. I'm going to pull up my shirt. Okay. Only for pants. Roll up. You might hear someone say, roll up your sleeves and get into work. So, roll up your sleeves means you take your sleeves and you roll them. So, you can roll your sleeves. You can also roll your... Oh, hold on. I have these. Your pant bottoms. Look at me. I have pants. You can roll them up. The opposite of that is roll them down. So, roll up, roll down. That makes sense. See? Something makes sense here. If something's an opposite, roll up or roll down. What other things can you roll up? You can roll up a wrap. You can roll up a joint. But you can't roll down a wrap. So, again, these are only for clothes. So, these can be your pant bottom legs or your shirt sleeves. Okay. Slip on. Squeeze into. Okay. Squeezing into something, never comfortable. If you slip something on, it means you put it on and it's kind of loose and baggy and wonderfully comfortable. I'm just going to slip on this shirt. Put it on fast. It's nice. But if you have to squeeze into something, yeah, it's probably telling you that whatever you're wearing is a little small. Like, oh, I have to squeeze into this shirt. Yeah, there's not a lot of room to move around. So, I mean, sometimes we got to do it. Ladies, we got to squeeze into some dresses and put our boobs in there. Like, oh, let me squeeze into this. I look great. Just don't breathe. You might squeeze into the pants you had from last year. Or if you've lost weight, you might slip into some new jeans. Never a good thing. Don't do it. Just get a bigger size. Okay. And the sizes? Mate, sometimes I go to the store and I'm like small, sometimes I'm medium, sometimes I'm large, sometimes I'm extra large. I'm like, what is going on? And sometimes they give you numbers like 8, 10, 12, 14. Ignore those. Just get what fits you. Never mind the numbers. Zip up. We talked earlier about zippers. Zip, zip, zip. So, with your zipper, you can zip up your zipper. I have a zipper. So, my purse here has a zipper. See? I'm going to zip up my bag. Or, I'm going to open, I'm going to unzip my bag. We use these for anything that has a zipper. So, it can be a shirt, it can be a pair of pants, some jeans. Let me unzip my jeans. Get some comfort in here. Jeans, pants, what have you got? What are you wearing? Don't put pants on. You can do whatever you want. Another opposite. Put on. Maybe the opposite of put on is take, is put off. Oh, no. We take off. Now, this is where English gets especially excruciatingly mind blowing. So, we have put on, and then we have put in. We have take off, and then we have take out. Someone order some take out? The difference is, we can put something on or take something off that goes on our body. For example, my glasses, I can put them on or take them off. My pants, I can put them on or take them off. You didn't see that, did you? But, if something actually penetrates our body or goes into our body, example, earrings, okay? So, I'm going to take out my earrings, and then I'm going to put in. Why? Because this actually is going inside my body. Isn't that weird? Another example of this is, if you don't wear glasses, maybe you have contact lenses or contacts, we actually, we stick them in our body. So, we say, oh, I'm going to put in my contacts. And at the end of the day, you got to take out your contacts. So, remember this, if it actually physically goes inside your body, we're going to put it in or take it out. If it goes outside of your body, we're going to put it on or take it off. Outside the body. So, can you think of another example of something that you put on? Yeah, you can put on a watch, good. You can put on a bracelet, anything that is jewelry, you can put on. The other things you can put in, hmm, yeah. I'll let your imagination run wild with that last one. But don't forget to wear protection. So, I hope you enjoyed shopping with me. And, hey, send me some money so I can go get a new pair of pants. Bye.