3 Uses of Get

Learn 3 uses of get

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about three uses of “get.”

Let's begin!

Okay, the first meaning I want to talk about is the basic meaning of the verb “get,” which is just to receive, to receive something. So we use “get” to refer to buying something at a store, for example, or receiving something from someone or receiving something from something else. So we use “get” in this way to show transfer of ownership of something.

For example, “I got a new job.”

“I got a new job,” Here, “got” is used, the past tense of “get,” so “I got a new job.” You'll notice in these sentences, these example sentences, we follow “get” or “got,” whatever verb form it is with some noun phrase, so let's take a look at the next one.

“He needs to get a haircut.”

Here, my noun is “a haircut,” he needs to get, so you can imagine this is like he needs to receive a haircut. So this haircut, it's like a service, kind of, too; so we can use it for services as well.

Next example, “we're thinking about getting a dog.”

“We're thinking about getting a dog.”

So in this sentence, you can imagine “getting” is like a replacement for “buying.” So we're thinking about buying a dog. But maybe you don't want to buy the dog, maybe you're going to adopt the dog from somewhere, or a neighbor's dog had puppies and you want to take one. So we're thinking about getting a dog, getting a dog. So we use “getting” here because this makes a noun form, this ing here creates a noun from a verb; so “getting a dog” is actually a noun phrase. So the act of receiving a dog.

Okay, our final example here: “she's never gotten a bad test score.”

“She's never gotten a bad test score.”

“Gotten” is the past participle form of “get,” so this means she's never received a bad test score essentially, but we use this to sound a little more conversational, a little bit more light.

Okay, so let's compare this then to the second use of “get” for this lesson.

We can use “get” before an adjective and when we do this, "get" means “become.”

So this sounds much less formal than “become.” A lot of learners use “become” in everyday conversations and it sounds very unnatural; we use "get" most of the time to talk about a change in status or a change in condition. Let's look at some examples.

“It's getting hot in here.”

So this means it's becoming hot in here. We do not say “becoming,” it sounds way too formal, very stiff; this is much more casual. A native speaker would say “it's getting hot in here,” that's what we would say if it's hot; or maybe cold too, “it's getting cold in here.”

So we use the progressive form or the continuous form to show that something is happening now, so “it's getting hot in here.”

Next.

“Wow! You got tall!”

This is an expression we use a lot with kids we have not seen for a long time. So you maybe see a family member one time a year, from the last time you saw this kid, the child has grown. You could say, “Wow! You got tall!” In other words, “Wow! You became tall!” But again, “become,” or “became” here in past tense, is way too stiff, so we use “got” instead.

“Wow! You got tall!”

So this is useful when talking about changes in physical appearance, too.

Okay, the next one.

“Your lunch is gonna get cold.”

So again, we can simply replace "get" with “become” and the sentence, the meaning of this sentence remains the same. But we do not use “become” in everyday conversation here. “Your lunch is gonna become cold” doesn't show a communication problem or doesn't have a communication problem but it sounds very unnatural. Instead, please use “your lunch is gonna get cold.”

“Your lunch is gonna get cold.”

This “gonna” means “going to.”

Your lunch is going to become cold in temperature, is what this means; so please eat your lunch.

Okay, the last example from this section:

“He's going to get angry when he hears the bad news.”

“He's going to get angry,” so again, we're using "get" here, “become angry”; and this is a future tense situation or future tense statement. The speaker is making a guess about this person's attitude in the future.

“He's going to get angry when he hears the bad news.”

So again, all of these examples use "get" or some form of the verb "get" before an adjective - hot, tall, cold, angry, and so on. So we can use it directly before an adjective to mean “become”; this sounds much more natural than “become” in everyday conversation, so please try to use "get," not “become.”

Okay, with that, let's go to the last part of today's lesson.

The last part focuses on using "get" instead of “be” in passive patterns.

So we do this to express something that was unexpected. So sometimes it can be, like, kind of negative or maybe it's like a shock, but generally the feeling is that something unexpected happened, or maybe it was an accident, so we use "get" instead of “be” with action verbs in the passive, so we don't use it with state verbs, so for example, like “no” or “think,” we don't use it with state or emotion related verbs, we use it with action related verbs.

Let's look at some examples:

“My snack got eaten by a dog.”

So here we could say “my snack was eaten by a dog” and that would also be correct. We're using past, “got eaten” to show, like, with more emphasis this was unexpected. So I had a snack, maybe I had my snack here, and a dog ate it, so I want to show that it was unexpected or something negative happened. I replace “was” in the regular passive pattern with “got”; my snack got eaten by a dog.

Okay, let's look at another example:

“His article got picked up by a big news site.”

So “picked up” means, in this case, the big news site found his article, took it, and put it on their website. So to pick up information like that, it's like it was shared by, in this case, a big news site. So we're using “got,” again in past tense, here to show that this situation was unexpected. This was not something planned so it's exciting; in this case, it's a surprise, we're showing that with “got” again. You could say, “his article was picked up,” that's perfectly fine, it just doesn't have the same feeling of surprise or lack of expectation.

The third example:

“Her house got damaged in the storm.”

So this use of “got,” again, shows us that something was not expected, maybe something, a really big accident happened in the storm; as a result, her house got damaged.

Okay, so let's talk about some common idioms that use "get."

These are just set phrases that we use with "get" plus something, so try to remember these as set patterns, so don't change these when you use them in speech.

First is "get married.”

To get married.

This is a very common one. So we use it at the point in time at the wedding ceremony, like “my friend got married last week” or “I'm excited to get married this summer.”

We use "get married” as a set phrase. Sometimes I hear students say, like, “got marriage,” which is not correct; we must use "get married”

“Get married.”

Another very common one is "get dressed.”

“To get dressed” means to put on your clothes.

“To get dressed”; so we don't say “to get a shirt on” or something like that, we use "get dressed” to mean, like, prepare ourselves and prepare our clothes on our body for the day.

To get dressed, we use that as an idiom.

Another good one is to "get lost.”

To get lost.

So you can imagine this expression meaning “become lost” like point number two here for today. So to "get lost” means you lose the place you're trying to go to. To get lost.

There's also kind of a mean or an aggressive expression we have, which is "get lost,” which is a rude way to say “go away” or like “lose yourself far from me,” "get lost.” So that's another idiom we use.

Two more are these two which we use, I use this one at the beginning of lots of videos on this channel - to get started.

“To get started” means to begin the process of starting something. Let's get started!

So I used this at the beginning of lots of videos to mean “let's begin” or “let's take the first steps in doing something,” and like “the next thing we're going to do,” let's get started. so this is an idiom, an idiomatic expression.

Similarly is "get going.”

"Get going”

You'll notice here I'm using “going”; these others have used like the past participle form of the verb, this expression is a set expression which means “leave.”

“Let's get going” means “let's leave,” but we use this casually when we're leaving like a party or some other event.

“Let's get going”

So it sounds kind of a little bit friendly and not so strong, not like “let's go”; but “let's get going,” like, let's take the first steps towards leaving this place.

“Let's get going”

So these are some very common idioms that you will hear with "get."

All right, so this is an introduction to three ways to use "get." I hope that you found something that you can use and I would encourage you to practice point two especially, so try to avoid using “become,” “become,” “become” a lot because it sounds very unnatural and very strange. Please try to use "get" instead.

Alright! So that will do it for this lesson. Of course, if you liked this lesson, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you haven't already. If you have any questions or comments or if you want to practice making sentences with the stuff I talked about in this lesson, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Also don't forget to check us out at EnglishClass101.com for some other things that can help you with your English studies. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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