Résumé:
Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are essential linguistic items that native speakers of English
constantly use in their daily conversations, informal situations, and even in their writings, EFL
learners find them difficult to learn and use them less frequently. In order to tackle this issue,
the present study aims at investigating EFL learners’ difficulties in comprehending and using
phrasal verbs properly. It has been hypothesized that EFL learners at the University of
Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia face difficulties in comprehending and using phrasal verbs due
to their semantic and syntactic properties. In this respect, a test was administered to 25 third
year LMD university students of the academic year 2018/2019 to find out which semantic and
syntactic types of phrasal verbs are more problematic for learners, and a questionnaire was
mainly assigned to 15 teachers of oral and written expression as well as those of grammar at
the same university to explore their views and perceptions on learning phrasal verbs and the
main difficulties learners encounter when learning them. The findings reveal that most of EFL
learners misunderstand and misuse phrasal verbs due to their idiomatic meaning. Moreover, the
position of the particle and the use of the wrong verb and particle are considered to be the most
syntactic problems to EFL learners. This implies that EFL learners at Mohamed Seddik Ben
Yahia face difficulties in comprehending and using phrasal verbs because of their semantic and
syntactic properties.
