Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard. 

This episode is medium so we’re looking at football words and phrases you need to describe what’s happening on the pitch or words and phrases fans and commentators on TV might use. There are lots of phrasal verbs to learn at this level.

Summary 

Learn more football vocabulary with Premier Skills English. Each lesson in our Premier Vocabulary section looks at one football word or phrase. This lesson looks at the phrase take on. 

You can find more lessons on the side of this page. 

Transcript

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to Premier Skills English - Premier Vocabulary. 

Jack: Hi there! I’m Jack. We’re here to help you with your football English. Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. 

Rich: Don’t forget you can always find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website. Premier Vocabulary has three different levels: easy, medium and hard. 

Jack: This episode is medium so we’re looking at football words and phrases you need to describe what’s happening on the pitch or words and phrases fans and commentators on TV might use. There will be lots of phrasal verbs to learn at this level. 

Rich: The phrase we are looking at in this episode is take on. 

Jack: This episode is a little different because we wanted to say thank you to one of our listeners - Marco Zapien from Mexico. 

Rich: We know that many of you have listened to lots and lots of our podcasts but last week Marco sent us an email and a picture. 

Jack: It was an image from Spotify podcasts that told him that he had listened to 319 of our podcasts for a total of 7,275 minutes. 

Rich: 7275 minutes. That’s 121.5 hours - over five days of listening to our podcast. 

Jack: In his email, Marco asked a question. He wanted to know when and how we can use the phrasal verbs take on and take up. 

Rich: So as a thank you for listening we are going to look at these phrasal verbs in two episodes of Premier Vocabulary. In this episode, we are going to look at take on. 

Jack: As we’ve said take on is a phrasal verb and it has a number of meanings. It can mean to employ somebody. 

Rich: A company might take on new members of staff if it has lots of work and is very busy. 

Jack: In the UK, shops and supermarkets often take on lots of temporary staff in November and December because ti’s a busy time of year. 

Rich: It can also mean to accept responsibility for something that is usually work-related. 

Jack: You might literally take on more responsibilities at work such as managing employees or being in charge of a specific area. 

Rich: Or if you are very busy you might say that you can’t take anything else on at the moment when you are asked to do more work. 

Jack: This means you are too busy and you can’t do any extra work. People who are self-employed might have to say this if they are very busy. 

Rich: If you listen to our podcasts a lot you might have regularly heard another use of take on that we use to talk about football. 

Jack: We might say Arsenal take on Chelsea this weekend or Manchester United take on Liverpool on Saturday. 

Rich: Take on can also be used to mean compete against someone or challenge someone. 

Jack: We’re saying that Arsenal are competing against Chelsea or Manchester United are challenging Liverpool on Saturday. 

Rich: It’s more interesting than just saying playing against. It’s more connected to battle or fighting against. 

Jack: There are also a few common collocations that we use with take on - we take on challenges, we take on tasks, we take on work, and we take on responsibilities. 

Rich: I hope that helped Marco and everybody else that was listening. 

Jack: We’ll have a look at take up next week. 

Rich: There is the final whistle! 

Jack: We’ll be back soon with more Premier Vocabulary from Premier Skills English. 

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.

Discuss 

What's the biggest challenge you've ever taken on? 

Who are your team taking on this weekend?