How to Use the Word ‘Get’ in English

Episode 40. How to use the word get in English. And welcome, or welcome back, to my simple English podcast. The podcast which helps you to learn the English language by listening. to real and interesting English in a slow and simple way. In this episode, we will be talking about the word get, the verb to get, which lots of you find quite difficult. Let's begin. How are you guys?

I hope you are all well, safe and happy. I am okay. I am happy, but I am not so well. You can hear from my voice. I have been ill. Yesterday and the day before and the day before that, I was quite ill, quite poorly. I was basically in my bed all day. sleeping, coughing a lot, and sneezing. These are very useful verbs if you are ill in English. But today I am feeling better. And although my voice sounds terrible, I sound like an old man. Maybe an old man who smokes 40 cigarettes every day.

I wanted to record this episode because next week I am going to be quite busy, and so I thought it would be better to record it now. So I hope you don't mind my deep voice. But today we have a grammar theme. I said in the introduction that this word to get...

Lots of you may find difficult. You may find it difficult because it is difficult. It's a tricky word. And on this podcast, originally, my original idea... for this podcast, was not to talk too much about grammar. I know that learning grammar and grammar rules is not the most effective way to learn a language. Think about it. I'm sure you have seen lots of children learn languages in schools and they learn the grammar, but they never learn to speak or even understand.

the language. The difference here though is that today we will be talking about grammar in context. Grammar in context, what does that mean? It means that we use real examples of the grammar so that you can see how the language really works. I actually find these types of episodes very useful. When I listen to Italian podcasts or Spanish podcasts, I find these episodes very useful where they talk about grammar in context.

And I have realised also that you guys seem to like my grammar-related episodes. I think my episode about five phrasal verbs in English It's my most popular episode. Most people listen to that episode. So today, we're going to have a grammar episode, a grammar lesson, and... Specifically, we're going to talk about the word to get. The verb to get. Now, the verb to get is not really one verb.

Get is used together with other words to create phrasal verbs. If you don't know what a phrasal verb is, don't worry, it is not important. What is important is that the word get doesn't really have a meaning on its own, or it is hard to know this meaning. Rather, the meaning of the word depends on the context. It depends on other words around it. So in this episode, I will show you some of the most common uses of the verb to get. so that you can see how it is used in a natural way. To get angry.

To get cold. To get tired. To get emotional. To get plus adjective is maybe the most common use. the verb to get. And in this way, the word get means to become. I get angry means I become angry. i wasn't angry before but now i am i get angry for example i get angry when i see my little brother because he is so annoying. No, it is a joke, guys. I love my brother. I get hungry when I see my favourite food.

Remember, hungry in English is an adjective. It's not to have hungry, but it is to be hungry. So I get hungry when I see the food. I get sad when I watch the news. The news is always sad, right? It's like get sad. To get plus adjective. Remember, We can use this in the past tense too. I got angry yesterday. Remember in the past tense, get becomes got. I got angry when my friend lied to me. The lady got upset when her boss shouted at her. You may notice that...

to get plus adjective. The adjectives most commonly used are quite negative. They're quite bad adjectives. To get angry, to get tired. to get hungry, to get upset, or to get sad. Why is this? I'm not really sure. You can use almost any adjective with this structure, okay? but some are just more commonly used in English. You can say, to get happy. For example, I get happy when the sun shines. Or to get excited.

I get excited when I'm going on holiday. This is good. It's not just negative ones. I hope you get excited to learn some English today.

The next use of the verb to get is very similar, but it is to get better and to get worse. I can say that I have got better at Spanish because of my holiday to Spain. You can say that you have got better at English, I'm sure. But also this verb, to get better, is used Especially if somebody is ill. If somebody is poorly. If they're sick. Again, ill and poorly are English words. Sick is more American.

But if your friend is really ill and in bed, you could say to them, I hope you get better soon. I hope you get better. To get better means to improve health. To get better. And to get worse, of course, is just the opposite. For example... I hope the situation in Ukraine gets better and doesn't get worse. To get plus adjective or to get better or worse.

Okay, now I have a joke for you. Oh yes, we love a good joke on this podcast. What did Batman say to Robin? before they got in the car you know batman and robin and their car the batmobile what did batman say to robin before they got in the car He said, Robin, get in the car. Okay. Okay, never mind. It doesn't matter. It's a terrible joke. My...

Dad told me this joke, and it's funny because you think that Batman will say something funny or something surprising to Robin before they get in the car, but no. He just says, get in the car. It's quite normal. This is quite English humour, quite an English joke. Don't worry if you don't understand. But did you notice... the second use of the verb to get which is to get in also very similar to get on you get in a vehicle you get

in a car. If you're in England and you're waiting outside a car and your friend says to you, get in, it means enter into the car. Move your body inside the car. Get in. Get in the car. You get on a bigger vehicle. Okay, so you get in a car, but you get on an aeroplane. and you get on a boat. It is bigger, so you have to get on, get up onto it. You also get on a bike. You get on a bicycle.

Okay, I know a bike isn't very big, bicycles are quite small, but you have to imagine, okay? But I want to say it doesn't matter too much, it is okay. If you make a mistake between... to get in or to get on, it doesn't matter. It is not important and you will learn what the difference between to get in and to get on is naturally with time.

It will sound much more natural, though, to try and say, I'm going to get in the car, than I'm going to enter the car, or something like that. Enter the car sounds... very strange in English. People will understand, but it is better to try to use this verb to get, to get in the car. Even if you say to get on the car, it is fine.

This actually gives the idea of climbing, moving up onto the roof of the car, the top of the car, and sitting on the top in the open air, but it doesn't matter, people will understand.

to get in a car, to get on a plane or a boat or a bike. This verb, to get, often has this idea of movement. So to get home means to go home. Can we get home before midnight? It just means can we go home before midnight? Yes, I think we can get home before midnight, but... only if we run if you want to remember these examples and to use them when you speak english in order to sound very natural i reckon that i reckon i recommend

that you listen to this episode more than once, so that you can absorb and learn these phrases naturally. So you might ask your friend, if they want to play football, and they write, reply, okay, but only for an hour, only for one hour, because I need to get home for dinner. to get home, to get in the car. When I went on holiday, we got on the plane in Birmingham and we got off the plane in Palma to get off.

of course, is the opposite of to get on, and to get out is the opposite of to get in. In and out, off and on. To get in, to get out, to get on, to get off. Imagine you're driving your car and there is someone who you really don't like in the car and they start annoying you. They start saying things to you, things that you don't like. They start saying mean things to you. You could stop the car, stop driving, and say to them, get out, get out of my car.

and they would have to leave, they would have to exit the car, they would have to get out, I hope. The next...

Use of the verb to get is quite an interesting one. But first I want to ask, how much do you get paid at your work? No, I'm joking. To get paid. This means how much do they pay you? I get paid 10 million pounds per hour. No. To get paid. Okay, guys? This is another use, quite a simple one, to get paid means they pay you. Another important use, maybe the biggest use, is simply to get something.

to get a noun for example i get food from the supermarket where do you get your food i get my food from my parents in this case to get Food, to get something, to get an object, means to receive it. To receive food is to get food. To buy food as well, but also to be given food. It depends on the context. To get something, to get a noun, it means to obtain or receive. or buy it. I get a new hat every week, for example. It's not real, guys. My friend, who is very rich,

gets the new iPhone whenever it comes out. He gets the new iPhone. Whenever there is a new iPhone, he gets it. This means he buys it. Just like I buy a new hat, I get a new hat. No, to get something, to get a new job. You might hear, congratulations on getting the job. Because to get a new job is to receive a new job, to start a new job. This is quite a difficult structure though. Congratulations on getting the new job. It's always congratulations on...

doing something. Congratulations on doing something. Congratulations on getting the new job. To get something.

Now we will talk about the final use of the verb to get. There are lots of uses. I think in this episode we have talked about the main uses. the most important uses um maybe if uh you are listening to this episode and you can't remember them When you listen to the episode again, write some notes. Try to keep separate, if you can, the different uses of the verb to get. Because remember...

It is really a different verb depending on the context, depending on how it is used. But the final use of the verb to get that we are going to look at is to get someone something. Okay, how does that sound? For example, they got me a present. They got me a present. Or they got me a cake for my birthday. To get someone something. They got me a cake. They got her a football.

They got him a present. I got my friend a present. To get someone something, in this case, to get really means to give. To give someone something. To get someone something, it means to buy something for someone or to give something to someone. To get someone for something. To get something for someone, you can say as well. Even simpler is just to get someone something. To get my friend something.

That is the end of this episode. I hope... No, I was trying to think of a sentence that had the word get in it to end this episode, but I can't. I hope you have enjoyed the episode and you can remember some of these uses of the verb to get. It is one of the hardest parts about learning English, some of these verbs that are hard to know what they mean, but hopefully the verb to get is a bit more clear, a bit more easy for you.

now if this is the first time that you have listened to my podcast i want to say well done on reaching the end on listening all the way to the end of this episode um your English must already be very good to understand me. If you find it difficult to understand everything I say in this podcast, then don't worry, listen again, keep learning English, keep writing down words that you don't understand, and eventually you will understand it all.

But well done for making the effort. Well done for listening. Thank you for listening. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye bye.