Is it transitive or intransitive?

All verbs can be transitive or intransitive. If a verb has an object, it is transitive. If it doesn’t have an object, it’s intransitive.

Look at the sentence: ‘She studies English.’

In this sentence, English is the object. It answers the question, ‘What does she study?’.  An easy way to tell if a verb is transitive or intransitive is to see if you can answer a question about where the action is being transferred to.

• E.g. – He’s looking for his bag.
• E.g. – She turned off the lights.
• E.g. – They took off their jacket.

Easy peasy, right? Let’s take a closer look at example #3.

Transitive

• A) She took off her jacket.
• B) She took her jacket off.

This sentence is transitive and has a phrasal verb. It is also separable. If a transitive phrasal verb is separable, it means the object can go AFTER the verb, like in sentence A, OR, it can go inside of the phrasal verb, like in sentence B. Let’s look at another example.

• C) She turned off the lights.
• D) She turned the lights off.

Intransitive

If a verb is intransitive, it doesn’t have an object. Intransitive phrasal verbs are always inseparable.

• C) The boy sat down in his chair.
• D) I grew up in Ireland.

Ready to put your knowledge to the test?

Phrasal verbs covered in these exercises:

1. Grow up – to become older, become an adult
2. Break down – to stop working
3. Make up – to invent / to complete / to be friends again after a fight
4. Sell out – to have no more items left to sell
5. Give up – to stop, to abandon
6. Look up – to search for information / to improve
7. Figure out – to understand or solve something
8. Point out – to indicate or draw attention to
9. Put off – to delay or postpone
10. Go over – to study or examine carefully