How to Use "GET"

I've been getting a lot of questions about this wonderful and useful verb that seems to confuse a lot of people. So why not break it down? Let's get started. You are listening to the twenty-eighth episode of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. First of all, get is an irregular verb. Get, got, got. However, in American English, we use gotten as the participle. We say get, got, gotten. Like, hey, have you gotten the results? So don't freak out if you hear that. Both ways are fine.

One of the reasons you may have difficulties using the verb to get in your day-to-day speech is simply that it can be a little confusing. We use get for a bunch of different things and it can be overwhelming. Plus, there are a lot of idioms that we use that might not make sense when you first hear them, but we'll cover those idioms another day. Let's take a look at the three ways we use get. Number one, get as to receive or to obtain.

As you know, we use get to replace para reemplazar certain verbs, which is one of the reasons people get confused. In this case, it's replacing recibir or obtener to receive or to obtain. Can you steal a bottle of water from me? Or whatever. True. But get kind of covers everything in a vague way that is very useful, I think. It's more about the context. Number two, get as to become, or to talk about changes of state, cambios de estado.

To get cold, to get hot, to get hungry, to get tired, to get better, to get dark, to get confused, etc. If you're waiting in line to go into a club on Friday night, but you didn't bring a jacket, you're probably going to get cold. If the sun is starting to go down, it's getting dark. If you're in a meeting and people are talking about a million things at once, you get confused. If you're walking around a city, you don't know, and you don't have a map, you might get lost.

A lot of those reflexive verbs we use in Spanish are usually expressed with the verb to get. So again, if you're talking about a change of state, you should probably use get. Not for all reflexive verbs though, but most of them. I'm saying this because some students love to find exceptions to every rule. So I try to avoid, intento evitar, saying all verbs this or all adjectives that, or we never do this, we always say that.

So I'm not going to give you a rule for 100% of cases because it doesn't exist. Okay. Number three, get as to cause something to happen, right? Hacer que pase algo. There are a few structures for this one. First, get plus object plus verb in past. Get plus object plus verb in past. For example, I'm getting my phone repaired. They're getting the house painted. They're getting the car checked before the road trip. We can also use get plus object plus the infinitive with two.

For example, they got him to talk to them. Can you get them to come to the party? Can you get them to agree? Can you get him to calm down, etc.? So a quick recap. Get as receive or obtain, as in, can you get me a beer? Get as become for changes of state. I'm getting cold. I'm getting tired of waiting, etc. And get as to cause something to happen. They're getting their car repaired, they're getting their house painted, etc. Those are the three ways we use get the most.

So don't be afraid of using get. You'll make mistakes at first, but once you start getting used to it, you'll see that it's the best. You don't have to use other verbs as much, and you'll also sound more natural in casual conversation. So it's a win-win situation. Don't get lazy. Alright, that's the show for today. I hope you enjoyed it, or at least got something from it. If you don't already, follow me on Instagram at English with Dane for quizzes and additional content.

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