Do you love watching TV? Perfect! We’re teaching you the most useful English phrasal verbs using our favorite American TV series. It’s effective, and—equally important—entertaining! In this short lesson, learn the phrasal verbs with “ask” and how to use them. Our English teacher Lizzie Jane created an activity to help you remember the meaning of “ask out” and “ask around.” Grab some popcorn and let’s get started! 🍿

Four brown, pink, and beige question marks made of paper. Text reads: English phrasal verbs: ask out versus ask around. MosaLingua.

English Phrasal Verbs with “Ask”

In this lesson, we’ll teach you the phrasal verbs that use the root verb “to ask”:

  • to ask for
  • to ask about
  • to ask around
  • to ask after
  • to ask in
  • to ask out

If you’ve been keeping up with our video series about English phrasal verbs, you should know what a phrasal verb is by now.

If this is your first, welcome! And if you’ve been here before, but you forget what a phrasal verb is, that’s okay! Let’s begin with a quick review. A phrasal verb is a verb that comes with another word, usually a preposition, that changes its meaning. As a result, it becomes an idiomatic phrase (logical, right?).

Phrasal verbs are actually very useful. Instead of memorizing a long list of words that are completely different from one another, you can add something to a word you already know. And voilà! It has a new meaning. Pretty practical.

That said, it’s also what makes them difficult to remember since they are all similar. Memorization techniques and apps with a spaced repetition system, MosaLingua for instance, can help. But mostly, you’ll just need to practice them as often as possible until they stick. And the activity below can help!

Start by reading about the various English phrasal verbs using “ask” in the table below. We’ve provided a definition and an example sentence to give you some more context.

After that, watch Lizzie’s video. For this activity, she picked a clip from Glee, a popular American TV show.

Phrasal Verb with AskDefinitionExample
to askto request; to seek information with a questionAsk her to come to the party!
to ask aboutto request information about someone or somethingHe asked about my sister.
to ask into invite someone to come inside your homeShe rang the bell so I asked her in.
to ask outto ask someone if they would like to go on a date, or be your girlfriend or boyfriendI really like Rachel. I'm going to ask her out.
to ask forto request to speak to or see someoneThe little boy was crying and asked for his mom.
to ask overto invite someone to come to your houseThey asked us over for dinner on Friday.
to ask aroundto talk to different people in order to get informationI need a plumber. I'm going to ask around and see if anyone knows a good one.
to ask afterto ask for news about someone, especially about their healthJohn was worried about you after your surgery. He asked after you.

 

Watch: Pick the Correct Phrasal Verb with “Ask” – Ask Out VS Ask Around

To illustrate the different uses of these phrasal verbs, Lizzie created a short video exercise. She’ll teach you the phrasal verbs with ask, including the meaning of “ask out” and “ask around.” Afterward, she’ll quiz you on what you remember! You can watch it right here or on our YouTube channel. The video is in English. However, you can watch with English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, or Portuguese subtitles. Click the “Settings” gear at the bottom right to active subtitles or change the playback speed.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to learn more phrasal verbs with clips from TV shows

 

Phrasal Verbs Activity: Video Transcript

If you can’t watch the video right now, you aren’t off the hook. 😉 That means you can still do Lizzie’s exercise.

Firstly, read the transcript from the scene below. After that, fill in the blank with the correct phrasal verb. Take your best guess, then highlight the black lines below with your cursor to reveal the answer! Good luck! (And don’t forget to bookmark this article or share it on your social media so that you can come back and watch the video later!)

 

Context: In this clip, Kurt has a serious question to ask his good friend, Blaine. Kurt is afraid he has misunderstood Blaine’s feelings.

Transcript:

Kurt: Okay. Can I ask you something? … because we’ve always been completely honest with each other…

You and I, we hang out, we sing flirty duets together, you know my coffee order.

Was I supposed to think that it was nothing?

Blaine: What do you mean?

Kurt: I thought the guy that you wanted to ask ____ on Valentine’s Day was me.

 

Hint: Not sure what the answer is? We’ll give you a hint! The word in the blank is either (TO GO) OVER or (TO GO) OUT. If you need to refresh your memory of the meaning of “ask out” and “ask around,” you can always scroll up to the table and review the definitions you learned earlier.

 

Answer

ASK OUT; Kurt thought that Blaine wanted to go on a date for Valentine’s Day with him because they had become quite close. “To ask someone out” means to ask if someone would like to go on a date. Remember, the phrasal verb “ask around” means to ask many people about something.

*If you are reading this on a mobile phone, or if highlighting the text doesn’t show the answer, scroll down to the bottom of the article and flip your device upside down to see if you guessed correctly!

 

Next Steps…

Lastly, if you liked this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on your notifications. That way, you’ll know when the next video in our phrasal verbs series comes out! In the meantime, here are some other articles you might enjoy:

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