Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to English with Dane, a podcast designed to improve your English. As always, I'm your host, Dane, and you can find me on Instagram at Englishwith Dane. If you want transcripts for all future episodes of the podcast, go to Englishwith Dane.comslash transcripts and sign up to the listener list. You'll receive full transcripts as soon as each episode comes out so you can follow along without missing a word. That's Englishwithdain.com slash transcripts.
And if you want extra episodes and a live conversation slash QA session every week, go to patreon.com slash Englishwith Dane. Today's episode is inspired by one of my patrons, Maura. Shout out to Maura in Guatemala City. She was telling me that she struggles with how to use GET effectively.
And even though I've covered this in a few different episodes, it doesn't do it justice because it's actually quite a deep topic, and one that has been frustrating English learners since the English learning has been a thing. So let's talk about it. You are listening to episode 120 of English with Dane. Hit it. Now, the first thing I want to say is don't get discouraged. No, but seriously, don't get discouraged.
There are a bunch of different ways to use get, and I don't want you to stress about remembering them all. Poco a poco. You might be familiar with a few ways of using get already, so focus more on the ones you're not so used to yet. Get is a really useful verb. Native speakers use it a lot because of the amount of phrasal verbs, idioms, and expressions that it provides. It's like get a clue, Dad. I'm not going to cover all of them because that would be crazy.
But what I will do is talk about some of the most common ways we use the verb to get, to make sure you're not caught off guard. The first use of get I want to talk about is to obtain opten it. You could get these poisons from any house in London. We use get to say we're going to buy something, to bring something for someone, acercarle algo a alguien, etc. You could ask your co-worker to get you a coffee on his or her way to work.
You can get someone a present for their birthday, etc. That's what I would say actually. If a friend's birthday is coming up, I'd say, hey, what should we get him for his birthday? In this case, it kind of acts like billar here in Spain. So that's get as obtener or conseguir. Next up is get as take. He gets the bus to work.
She gets the train to visit her parents up north, etc. If you want to ask someone si va a coger el metro, sorry to my Mexican listeners, then you'd say, are you getting the metro? Well, we say metro here in Madrid, or que decimos metro in espanhol, but I guess you'd call it the tube if you're in London, or the subway if you're in New York. Let's now talk about get acting as the verb receive. This one is super common. Well, they're all common, but this one is one of the most common.
You can say, hey, did you get my email? Did you get my invitation? Did you get a prize? Did you get your money back? Did you get the job? Did you get an offer? Did you get anything for your birthday? You get the point. No pun intended. So get as receive. So far that's get as obtain, get as take, and get as receive. Let's keep going. This next one is one of the ones that people tend to have a hard time with. Not with understanding it, but with using it. It doesn't feel as natural, maybe.
I'm talking about get as to become. It's getting cold, so you should put on a jacket. So it's becoming cold, right? It's getting dark. It's getting cloudy. I think it might rain. I'm getting really frustrated. He's getting older. You can get better at English if you practice a bit every day. He's getting really good at Photoshop because he's putting in the hours. If you get good at programming, you can build your own app. That might not even be true these days, actually.
But yeah, you get good at something. If someone is sick, you'd say get well soon. Get well soon. I hope you feel better, in other words. So get as become. If you use become in these situations, it just sounds weird. It's becoming cold. It's not incorrect, but it it sounds super weird. Don't say it. Next up, we have get as arrive. We use it much more than arrive, really. It's much more common to say I'll get there at around three. When you get here, don't ring the doorbell.
Give me a call instead, and I'll open the door. They got there late. I always get to work on time. By the time they got there, the store had closed. The store had closed. Now it's important to talk about something else here. You get to the office, you get to the park, you get to the gym, etc. But there are some instances in which we don't use that to. Home, for example. We got home at 10. We got home late. I hate getting home late. I always get home around 6.
With home, we don't include to, okay? If your friends are over at your house, like you just hosted a dinner party and your friends are leaving, you'd say get home safe. In general, we say get to when talking about arriving at a place, but with the word home, we don't. Remember that. Another instance of not needing to is when we use here, there, somewhere, or anywhere. I want to get there at 3. The car won't start, so we won't get there on time. They got here late.
We never say they got to here late. No. They got here late. Okay, I think that's clear. Then we have get as understand. The classic, I don't get it, no lo entiendo. I didn't get the joke, no entendí el chiste. I'm realizing now that get is really similar to pillar here in Spain. No lo pillo, I don't get it. Well, at least in those two senses of the word. Do you get what I'm saying? So it's the same as do you understand what I'm saying? You just don't get it, do you?
Last but not least, we have get as to make something happen. We're getting the car fixed. You should get that looked at by a doctor. You need to get your closet organized before the move, antes de la mudanza. If they don't get the paperwork sorted by then, they're going to have a problem. We're getting the house painted this week. This one is not as common as the other ones, but it's still one that you should be aware of. Here's an example from the hangover.
We need to get this marriage installed immediately. Alright, I hope that's more clear. I hope you feel more comfortable using get after this short episode. I'm going to do an episode about more phrasal verbs with Get on Patreon. So if you want to listen to that, go to patreon.com slash English with Dane and sign up. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. Thank you for listening. I hope it helped.
Support English with Dane by following the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Give it a five-star rating, and if you can, leave a review if you really want to help out. Remember Englishwithdain.com for transcripts and at Englishwith Dane on Instagram for quizzes and random stuff. All right, talk soon. Bye bye.