Thread: Brush up / Brush up on...

How do they say in modern English today? Brush up or Brush up on .... Which is correct "I need to brush up my Spanish" or "I need to brush up on my Spanish"?
All dictionaries I have checked say both are correct. But there's an opinion - somebody told me - that only the latter is correct. Native speakers, please give me your comments on this. Thanks in advance.

It sounds better to me with "on" but I think they're both ok. Amazon has a book called "Brush Up Your Shakespeare". Maybe it's one of those British English vs. American English things (I'm American)

Originally Posted by Hotdog

It sounds better to me with "on" but I think they're both ok. Amazon has a book called "Brush Up Your Shakespeare". Maybe it's one of those British English vs. American English things (I'm American)

thanks Hotdog, i've checked the books, there are books in the series called "Brush up your Shakespeare", "Brush up your Bible", "Brush up your mythology", etc.... At the same time there are books containing the name "Brush up on your writing skills"...

Hey there Alex, I've also only heard it as brush up on... Even asked the teenagers and thats what they said they would say too, so no age gap here.

could be normative literary form vs colloquial form