Meet/meet up with/meet with

[JuliaRom]

Hello.
I'm a teacher of English from Moscow. Some time ago I came across a lexical mistake as I thought that time. One of my students wrote "we meet with obstacles". I answered that we can't say it this way we have to write "met a few obstacles". But later I foud out that there is the phrasal verb "to meet with" but it is mainly used in political discourse. So my question is if we can say "meet with" in ordinary context or not? What is the difference between "meet with" and "meet up with"?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tarheel]

Hello.
I'm a teacher of English from Moscow. Some time ago I came across a lexical mistake as I thought that time. One of my students wrote "we meet with obstacles". I answered that we can't say it this way we have to write "met a few obstacles". But later I foud out that there is the phrasal verb "to meet with" but it is mainly used in political discourse. So my question is if we can say "meet with" in ordinary contextS or not? What is the difference between "meet with" and "meet up with"?

.

I would say you can either encounter obstacles or meet with obstacles. You can "meet up with" somebody, but I would say you simply meet them.

(American English)