Learning Vocabulary: Phrases with go

A Premier League assistant referee flagging for offside.

Article by

Language level

Downloadable files

Premier Skills English - Learning Vocabulary - Phrases with go

Learning Vocabulary - Phrases with go - poster

Learning goals

Skills: Listening

Vocabulary: Phrases with go

Task: Work out some difficult phrases from context

Learning Vocabulary: Phrases with go

In this week's Premier Skills English Podcast, Jack and Rich try to describe the offside rule and roleplay five short conversations where they use phrases with go. They look at five different ways of using go and how you can use these phrases in your everyday English. Your task is to use some difficult phrases with go in context. As always, we also have a new football phrase for you to guess. Enjoy!

If you find the podcast difficult to understand, you can read the transcript and listen at the same time.

Read and listen at the same time.

Introduction:

Jack: Alright, Rich? How’s it going?

Rich: Not bad. Actually, I’m stuck on something. I’m working on an article about the rules of football and I’m trying to write the offside rule in an easy way so everybody can understand.

Jack: What have you got so far?

Rich: The law states that a player is in an offside position if any of their body except the hands and arms is in the opponent's' half of the pitch and closer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.

Jack: That sounds a bit difficult. Not sure if everybody is going to understand that. Let’s think of something a bit easier.

Rich: Go on then. Go for it!

Jack: Here we go then … what about … when a player passes the ball forwards to a teammate who is in the attacking half of the pitch, there should be two players from the defending team in front of the player receiving the ball?

Jack: There you go! Easy!

Rich: I’m not sure if that’s exactly right or if it is any easier for learners to understand. Can you go over that again?

Jack: Let’s go for a drink and we can go through it one more time.

Rich: Good idea. Let’s go!

Welcome - Go

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich

Jack: and I’m Jack

Rich: and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast

Jack: Where we talk about football and help you with your English.

Jack: What’s happening this week, Rich?

Rich: In this week’s podcast, we’re looking at vocabulary. We’re going to look at some common phrases, collocations and phrasal verbs with the word ‘go’.

Jack: Did you notice that we used lots of different phrases with ‘go’ in the opening conversation? We’re going to look at some of these again later on.

Rich: And don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to try to guess.

Topic Focus

Jack: In this section, we’re going to do five short roleplays and your challenge is to listen for the word ‘go’ and think about how it is being used.

Rich: Ready for roleplay one?

Jack: Go for it!

Rich: Roleplay one.

Jack: Are you going home after work?

Rich: No, I’m going to the match.

Jack: You’re going to the stadium? I didn’t know you had tickets. I thought you’d be going to the pub to watch it.

Rich: No, but I might go on the way though.

Jack: One of the most common ways to use go is with places and events. In this example we used go home, go to the match, go to the stadium and go to the pub.

Rich: There is a difference between going to school and going to the school and going to hospital and going to the hospital, isn’t there?

Jack: Yes, with some phrases you can use the article and it changes the meaning. Without the it means you’re going to the place for its intended purpose. For example, I’m going to hospital because I’m sick or I’m going to school to study. If you say I’m going to the hospital or I’m going to the school, it means you are visiting the building and it could be for a different reason.

Rich: But we only use these phrases for specific places.

Jack: Yes, hospital, school, church, university and maybe a few more.

Rich: Listen to our podcast about articles if you want to learn more about speaking about general and specific nouns.

Jack: There is a link on the side of the page.

Rich: Roleplay two.

Jack: Did you do anything at the weekend?

Rich: Not really. I went shopping for a few bits and bobs … oh and I went swimming on Sunday. I always go swimming on Sunday mornings. What about you?

Jack: I had a brilliant weekend. We went to the beach and my boys went surfing for the first time.

Rich: And you?

Jack: I went for an ice-cream.

Rich: Another common way to use go is go + ing. In the conversation you heard go shopping, go swimming and go surfing.

Jack: It’s really common to use go + ing when we are talking about leisure activities - things you do in your free time.

Rich: We use go when we can speak about an activity in the gerund form like swimming and shopping.

Jack: Some other common phrases are things like go camping, go jogging, go fishing and go mountain climbing.

Rich: Roleplay three.

Jack: What’s that?

Rich: What’s what?

Jack: That there in your hair.

Rich: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Jack: Grey hair. You’re going grey!

Rich: Alright, it happens to all of us you know, unless you go bald!

Jack: Yeah, yeah!

Rich: We can use go to mean become, in the conversation you heard going grey and go bald. This means that my hair is becoming grey and Jack is bald.

Jack: I’ve still got some hair!

Rich: Alright, you are going bald!

Jack: Mmm .. there are other phrases like this such as go mad, go crazy and go wrong or go off.

Rich: Go off?

Jack: Yes, that’s a difficult one. It’s a bit like a phrasal verb, really. We can it to describe food that has gone or become bad because it is old. That food’s gone off! Yuk! I’m not sure if it really is a phrasal verb because off is an adjective that means bad for food - usually eggs and milk. You can say - this milk is off.

Rich: But go off is a phrasal verb as well. We use it to mean explode for bombs and fireworks.

Jack: And for alarm clocks. What time did your alarm go off this morning?

Rich: Roleplay four.

Jack: Do you want to go for a drink?

Rich: No, not tonight, Jack. I’ve really got to go for a run tonight. I haven’t done any exercise in ages.

Jack: Never mind. I should probably go for a jog or something instead, perhaps I’ll go for a walk.

Rich: What about going for a meal at the weekend? We could all go?

Jack: Sounds good.

Rich: The phrase go for a is a useful one. It means to go somewhere to do something.

Jack: In the example, Rich said he had to go for a run.

Rich: Go for a drink, go for a coffee or go for a meal are phrases that are often used in invitations.

Jack: Roleplay five.

Rich: The price of butter has gone up again.

Jack: Prices never go down, do they?

Rich: Look over there! The butter shop - it says everything must go!

Jack: There you go!

Rich: That was a stupid conversation!

Jack: I know … but the word go is very common in phrasal verbs and other phrases. For example, go up and go down are phrasal verbs that mean increase and decrease and the phrase everything must go is a phrase you see at shops when they want to sell everything.

Rich: We’ve got some more difficult phrases and phrasal verbs for you to learn on the lesson page below this podcast.

Jack: Before we go … I thought we could talk about a couple more phrases with go because there are so many to learn.

Rich: OK, one of my favourites is when you ask How does that song go?

Jack: Ah, yes. Here go means expressed or played - what’s the tune to a song … how does it go?

Rich: Other phrases I like are How’s it going and What’s going on? Which we use at the start of conversations instead of how are you? and what’s happening? They’re informal greetings.

Jack: What about football phrases?

Rich: I like go for it. A team has to go for it if they want to win. If both teams go for it, it usually means a really attacking game with lots of goals. Any others?

Jack: There is here we go, of course.

Rich: Here we go?

Jack: You know fans at football stadiums shout it: here we go, here we go, here we go.

Rich: Of course. Why do we sing that?

Jack: Good question!

Football phrase

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us this week?

Jack: Yes, I have, but first, last week’s football phrase. Last week’s phrase was miss out. It means to not do something or not to take part in something that is usually enjoyable. Some players will miss out on the World Cup because of injury and some will miss out because they’re not selected.

Rich: Well done to Lakerwang from China, Sabanoleg and Liubomyr from Ukraine, Ahmed Adam from Sudan, Milos from Serbia, from Indonesia and Kwesimanifest from Ghana. You all got the right answer! What’s this week’s football phrase?

Jack: This week’s football phrase is to ** ****. It’s a phrasal verb with the word we’ve been looking at in this week’s podcast so shouldn’t be too difficult! It means to be relegated. Stoke City, West Brom and Swansea have **** **** this season.

Rich: Easy! Right, that’s all we have time for this week! Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below.

Jack: If you have enjoyed this podcast or found it useful, leave us a rating or review and that will help other people find us.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!

How much did you understand?

In the podcast, Rich and Jack used some words and phrases that might be new for you. Do you know the words in bold?

I went shopping for a few bits and bobs.

It happens to all of us you know, unless you go bald.

There were a few more tricky words in the podcast. Do you know what they all mean? Try the activity below, then, listen to the podcast again to hear how we used the words.

Activity 1: In this activity, try to match the words and phrases to their definitions. All of the words were in this week's podcast.

Jack's children WENT SURFING last weekend while he WENT FOR AN ice-cream!

Phrases with go

In this week's podcast, Jack and Rich spoke about the word go. Did you know that it had lots of different meanings? They discussed five common ways to use go:

Go (to) + a place or event

We can use phrases such as go to hospital, go to school and go home when we talk about going to a place for its intended purpose. With other phrases and events such as go to the match, go to the concert, go to the cafe we are talking about a specific event or building. Take a look at these examples from the podcast:

Are you going home after work?

No, I'm going to the match.

Go + -ing

It is common to use go + -ing when we are talking about leisure activities such as shopping, camping or fishing. The activity uses the gerund form and is a noun, not a verb. Take a look at these examples from the podcast:

I went swimming on Sunday.

My boys went surfing for the first time.

Go = become

Go can sometimes mean become which means to change from one state to another. These expressions are often connected to the body. Take a look at these examples from the podcast:

You're going grey.

It happens to us all, unless you go bald!

Go for a + noun

This is a nice informal structure that is useful to learn. It's a common phrase to use for informal invitations and can also be used to describe something that you are going to do. Take a look at these examples from the podcast:

What about going for a meal this weekend?

I should probably go for a run or something.

Phrasal Verbs with go

Go is often found in phrasal verbs such as go away, go down and go up. The best way to learn phrasal verbs is in context. Here are some examples from the podcast:

The price of butter has gone up again.

Prices never go down, do they?

In the activity below, take a look at some sentences that use phrases with go and try to write the missing words.

Activity 2: In this activity, write the correct word to complete each sentence. All the phrases were in this week's podcast.

Prices often GO UP but they GO DOWN sometimes, too.

10 phrases with 'go'

Go is a very common word and there are hundreds of collocations and phrases that use it. We've looked at lots of phrases with go in this podcast. Here are ten more that we used in this podcast. Your task is to listen again (or use the transcript to help you) to find the phrases and use some of them in an example sentence or two in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

How's it going?
Go bald.
There you go.
Go for it!
Go up.
Yuck! That's gone off!
Go through.
Let's go!
Here we go.
How does it go again?

Do you know all of these phrases? When might you use or hear these phrases?

What do you think?

In this week’s podcast, Jack and Rich had problems describing the offside rule and they spoke about phrases with go.

What's the simplest way to describe the offside rule?
How often do you go out at the weekends? Do you often go for a drink/meal with friends? Do you like going shopping/camping/sightseeing?
You go to the match, a team goes up and it's great when two teams go for it. Can you think of any other football phrases with 'go'?

Look at the task above and try to use two or three of the phrases with go. Write your answers below.

Remember to write your guess at this week's football phrase, too!