How to use “GET” like a native English speaker

Hi, I'm Ronnie.

Um, and - Oh, wow!

I got a balloon!

Woo-hoo!

Thank you!

Who gave me a balloon?

I got a balloon, I got a balloon, I'm so happy!

Balloons are the best, yeah?

You can hit people on the head with them and just have a really great time with a balloon.

But there's something that I need to talk to you guys about, something quite serious,

actually.

A lot of people ask me about very formal English.

Changing their formal vocabulary into less formal or informal or, even if you wanted

to, you could say slang, but it's not really slang.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that what we do with our English language is we completely

dumb it down.

If you dumb something down, it means you make it easier or dumber.

No.

And what happens is we take beautiful verbs that you might have in your language, or very

similar, and we just replace them with the verb "get" or "got".

So, people who are learning English find it really difficult, because native speakers

always say "got".

I got this.

Did you get it?

Oh, I got this.

But actually, "got" has many different meanings, and we're replacing our verbs with one verb.

So, this gets easier.

Maybe you can replace all of the verbs with "got"!

Nah, it's not going to work.

But I'm going to teach you really, really specific examples that I hear all the time.

In reverse, if you think that maybe your English is a little bit informal and you would like

to focus on learning more formal English, you can replace your wonderful use of the

word "got" or "get" to more exclusive verbs.

So, let's go.

Formal to informal, featuring the verb "get".

And first of all, we've got to look at the forms of the verb "get".

In the simple present, we have "get".

The past tense is "got", so I got a balloon.

The past participle, which we would use with present perfect or past perfect or in the

passive voice, we would say "gotten".

You can also just say "got".

Trick.

And we can also use with -ing if we use an adjective.

For example, I can say, "I'm getting a cold, achoo!"

Maybe tomorrow, getting a cold, but I got a balloon, yeah, I got a balloon!

Okay, calm down, Ronnie.

Concentrate.

So, you guys will say something like, "Oh, yesterday, I received an email."

And I'll be like "Ah, did you get my email?"

So, instead of the word "received", for an email or a letter, we would say "got".

Now, notice this is the past tense, so we'd say, "I got an email".

She bought a ticket.

Look at this pronunciation, be careful.

It looks like "bogeta", but it's actually just "bought".

You can remember it like "robot".

So, in informal English, we don't say "Oh, you know, I went online and I bought a ticket."

We would say, "Ah, I got a ticket."

This one is a very, very common one that, oh, freaks me out how often people use this.

If you say, "They arrived home at 7."

Oh, you mean you got home at 7?

Because that's how I would say it more naturally.

So, you can definitely say these verbs, received, bought, arrived.

But you have to understand that native speakers, we replace with the verb "got", because all

of these are past tense, okay?

So, be careful of your tenses.

This is an example of using the negative, okay?

So, I can say, "He didn't understand the joke."

But I would say, "Oh, you know what?

He didn't get my joke."

Remember, when you're using the negative in the past, your verb is going to be still the

simple present.

So, we're going to say "He didn't get the joke".

Maybe the joke wasn't funny.

Okay.

This is fun too.

"I developed a rash."

So, a rash is - hello, balloon.

A rash is when your skin, when it gets really itchy and red spots and you gotta scratch

it?

That's a rash.

You can also develop a tan.

Or like me, you can get a sunburn.

So, a tan is when the sun makes your skin darker.

Which most people like.

I'm a vampire though, right?

So, I don't get a tan.

So, very formally, we'd say, "I developed a tan.

I developed a rash from eating too many pistachios".

But normally, in very informal English, we'd say, "I got a rash from eating all the nuts."

This is an example of when we're using an adjective.

Now, this is a verb, a rash, a tan, the joke.

These guys are all nouns.

So, be careful with your grammar.

"I'm", you have to say the verb "to be".

"I'm becoming mad."

So, maybe you're trying to express your emotion.

When we talk about our emotion, our emotions in English are usually adjectives.

Hungry, sad, happy.

So, we wouldn't say, "You know what?

I'm becoming hungry."

We would say, "I'm getting hungry".

So, we're going to use the verb in the -ing, because we're using it with an adjective.

So, I'm getting hungry.

I'm getting tired.

I'm getting bored.

I'm going to play with my balloon.

I gotta go.

Did you get it?