Let's Learn English! Topic: The Verb "To Get" 🥶🗑️✈️ Phrasal Verbs and Expressions (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this English

lesson about the verb to get.

In the English language, we use the verb to get a lot.

There are a number of phrasal verbs that we use.

There are verb expressions, there are verb phrases

which are a little different than phrasal verbs.

So in this English lesson, I'll talk about, I

think over 35, at least close to 35.

I'm not sure, I can't remember the exact total,

but different ways to use the verb to get.

Already this morning, I've probably used it

a million times in my life.

I had to decide what time to get up and then I got

something in my eye this morning and I had to get it out.

So I used the past tense, I got something in

my eye and I had to get it out.

If you see me blinking a lot, that's why.

Because maybe I didn't get it all the way out.

But yes, just a number of ways

that we use the verb to get.

I made a video a few years ago where I

think I used it like 100 times in three minutes.

So in this lesson, in this English lesson on the

verb to get, I'll try to take a little time

to explain each and every one of them.

So welcome once again to this English

lesson about the verb to get.

To get ready.

This morning I had to get ready to do this lesson in

the morning before you go to work, you need to get ready.

When you get ready, it means

you prepare to do something.

I have to get ready for the school year because

it starts in less than a week and a half.

Next week I have meetings, and the week after that I

have to stand in front of students and teach them.

So I need to get ready.

I need to prepare.

In the morning, when you get ready, you put on your

shoes, you brush your teeth, you might comb your hair, you

put a shirt on, or what we usually say, get dressed.

I'll talk about that one in a moment.

To get ready means simply to prepare for something

that you're going to do to get up.

So this is an interesting one.

In the morning you wake up, that's when you open your

eyes and then when you actually sit up in bed.

Or I want to say get out of bed,

but that's another use of the word get.

That's what we say.

That's how we say to get up. Okay.

Or that's what we mean by get up.

So in the morning I usually get up around 630.

This morning I got up at

seven, a little later than normal.

So when the alarm clock goes off, you wake up, you

open your eyes, you go from sleeping to being awake.

And then a few moments later, you might

get up, physically get out of bed so

you can get ready and start your day.

So we have to get up and then to get down.

So to get down has several meanings.

The one I want to teach

today means to dance vigorously.

So if you are a good dancer, you

might say that you like to get down.

It's an older way of using the phrase.

When I play really loud music,

sometimes I dance a little bit.

I might get down, but generally this would mean to

move an object from up high to down low.

When I get water in the morning,

I chose the extra large cup.

I need to get the cup down from the

cupboard in order to fill it with water.

But definitely you can get down at a party

if there is some music playing to get it.

So in this use of the verb get, we mean to understand.

So a common question a teacher might ask

a student is, do you get it?

And basically you're saying, do you understand?

So when you're explaining a concept, it might

be really challenging for the student, and you

might say, okay, do you get it?

Now do you understand?

Do you get it?

Sometimes it takes a while.

Maybe you're trying to understand what this

use of the verb get means, and

all of the sudden you will understand.

You will all of the sudden get it.

You will know what I am talking about.

Just give me a moment here to open up

my slides so I know what I'm talking about.

There are a lot of lessons in this folder,

so I have to scroll way down to find.

Let's see the verb get. There we go.

Now I know what I'm talking about.

So to get it simply means to understand.

To get dressed.

So this morning I got dressed. Past tense.

In the morning you need to get dressed.

When you get up in the morning, one of the

first things you might do is you might have a

shower or a bath, and then you might get dressed.

You put your clothes on.

That's another way of saying it.

So this morning I got dressed.

Every morning I need to get

dressed before I go to work.

Soon I'll be wearing shirts like this more often because school

will start when I get dressed in the morning, I'll put

on a nice shirt with a collar and buttons.

I've mostly been putting t shirts on

when I get dressed in the morning.

But soon I will start to put on nicer clothes as I

need to go back to work to get a hold of.

So as you can see, not all of these are phrasal verbs.

Some of these are just expressions or

the way we say things in English.

When you need to get a hold of someone it

means you, you're trying to contact them with a phone.

So if I was to try to get ahold

of my brother I would dial his number.

Actually I would just click his name and then hopefully

he picks up the phone and then I might say,

oh, I've been trying to get ahold of you. Where are you?

You said you would come and help

me with the work I'm doing today.

So when you want to get a hold of

someone it simply means you're trying to contact them.

Almost always with a phone.

Like you can phone someone to talk to them or

text them, you're trying to get a hold of them.

Um, actually the other day I was at um,

a place to order some stone and they said

the person who takes care of that isn't in

this warning and we can't get ahold of him.

That means he probably wasn't answering his phone.

Maybe his phone was dead.

So it was hard to get ahold

of that person to get going.

Jen and I went to market yesterday.

Jen leaves for market at 01:00.

At 01:00 she said I need to get going.

Basically it means she needs to leave.

Okay, when you need to get going?

When you say it's time to get

going it means you're leaving next week.

I have a meeting at 08:00 in the morning.

It's about half an hour drive.

So at 730 I will need to get going.

I will need to leave so that

I get to that meeting on time.

So um, it's important in the morning to get going.

Um, it's important to be on

time, at least in my opinion.

So uh, usually I like to get going early

so that I arrive on time at the place

where I am going to get in shape.

So sometimes we eat too much, sometimes we don't exercise

enough, sometimes we put on a little weight and then

we decide that we need to get in shape.

When you get in shape it means you get fit.

There's another way to say it.

It means you want to look healthy.

It means you want to be the proper weight for your age.

So often people will try to get in shape.

This is very common right after New Year's Eve.

People celebrate the new year and they

decide they want to get in shape.

They decide they're going to join a gym, they're

going to start lifting weights and they're going to

start running or doing some other form of exercise,

they are going to get in shape.

Um, I like to try and get in shape every summer.

I try to stay in shape year round, but sometimes at

the beginning of summer, uh, I need to get in shape.

So that's what I work on to get started.

Okay, so I think it's time to get

started on some questions in a bit.

When you get started on something, it means you.

Well, sometimes making a list is

what you do to get started.

It simply means to start.

Yesterday I needed to prepare this lesson.

So I needed to get started on preparing the lesson.

I could just say, start.

Okay, he's going to start talking.

He's going to get started soon.

I guess it is slightly different, but

it simply means to begin something.

If you have a lot of things to

do today, you probably want to get started.

You probably want to begin.

You want to start working on the things that

you need to do today to get along.

When you are friends with someone, we say that

you get along, you enjoy being with each other.

You might have a brother or sister

that you get along with really well.

I get along really well with my sister.

Yesterday I needed a ride somewhere and I didn't have a

vehicle, so I asked my sister and she said, sure.

And when she drove me there, we talked and laughed

because we get along, we like talking to each other.

We like hanging out with each other.

We get along really well.

So when you get along with someone, it means you

are friends with them or you just like them or

you like spending time with them to get to know.

So sometimes you meet new people and you don't know much

about them, so you want to get to know them.

So let's say I went to work

and there was a new person there.

I might be introduced and I might find out their name.

And then at lunch that day we might

get to know each other a bit better.

I might ask, oh, where are you from?

Where did you go to school?

Those kinds of things.

And that person might ask me the same thing.

So when you get to know someone,

you learn little things about them.

Some of you like to get to know

me by asking questions in the comments or

by asking me questions during Saturday live streams.

You try or like to get to know me better.

You want to know little things about me

so that you just know me better. I guess so.

To get to know is to learn things about someone

who you work with or see regularly to get together.

Sometimes people get together after work.

You might go to work and someone might

say, hey, we're going to a restaurant.

We're going to get together at eight

in order to have something to eat.

Yesterday my son went out with some friends.

They were going to get together and

see a music concert, I think.

So get together simply means to meet with people.

But it's probably more common than you think.

Like you might say, why?

Why don't you just say you're going to meet people?

Why do you say you're going to get together?

It's just how we speak.

It's very common.

There's some flies that are getting together

right now on my computer screen.

So, yes, very common. Do you think?

Oh, in fact, sometimes when people meet

together, we call it a get together.

There's gonna be a little

get together after work today. Do you want to come?

So when you get together with people, it means

you meet with them, usually socially, by the way,

although someone might say, hey, a few of us

are going to get together at lunch.

Yeah, it's usually social.

Not always, but I think most of the

time it's very social to get ahead.

Everyone wants to get ahead.

Everyone wants to have a little more

money than they have right now.

Everyone wants to be successful in life.

Everyone wants to be happy.

When we say someone is getting ahead or they're going

to get ahead, it means they're going to earn money.

It's not necessarily that they're going to

be rich, but they're going to have

enough money to do what they want.

So someone might start a business and after

five years the business is doing really well.

We could say, oh, they're really getting ahead.

You know, they started that business to get ahead.

So it simply means to do

well in life, usually financially.

That is very common for it

to mean financially, to get ahead.

To get even.

So this one's a little tricky to explain.

Do you play pranks on other people?

Like, do you do little things?

Like, for instance, would you ever put a

whole bunch of balloons in someone's car or.

I don't know, I'm trying to think, like hide their

keys so they can't find them just to be funny.

Well, if someone does that to you,

you might want to get a even.

We also say get back at them,

so you might want to get even.

So let's say my brother came in the night and

filled my car with balloons just to be funny.

Maybe it's my birthday or something.

The next year, when it's his birthday, I might go

to his house and fill his car with balloons to

get even because he did something to me.

And now I want to do something to him.

This has a more sinister meaning as well.

Or I can give you a more sinister example.

Sometimes when you're watching a movie or a tv

show, someone will do something bad to someone else,

and then they might want to get even.

So someone might hurt someone in a gang and then

someone else, someone in the gang might want to get

even and do something to someone in the other gang.

So to get even means to get retribution.

That's the other word we use to

talk about that, to get rid of.

So now you know why there's a garbage can or

a waste basket in the title of this video.

And I think, was there one on the thumbnail?

Because when you get rid of something,

it means you throw it out.

He does not want this egg carton anymore.

He's going to put it in the garbage can.

He's going to put it in the trash can.

He's going to get rid of the egg carton.

Whenever you have something and you throw it in

the garbage or throw it in the trash, we

use the phrase to get rid of.

I try to get rid of stuff as quickly as possible.

I don't like having all of this stuff

over here, but this is kind of important.

I have to do something with it.

It's crazy glue, actually. This is crazy.

I have to fix something with crazy glue.

I'm not sure what that other stuff is there.

Just some packaging, I think.

Anyways, I like to get rid of stuff right away.

If I get a box from Amazon and I open

it, I recycle the box, I recycle the plastic.

I want to get rid of it.

I don't want to have it in my house.

So I get rid of it.

I throw it away, throw it in

the garbage to get wind of.

So when you get wind of something, it means there's a

secret and you kind of, someone told you about it.

So let's say my sister was planning a surprise party

for me, and then my brother accidentally mentions it.

I would say, oh, yeah, I got wind

of the party because John mentioned it. Okay.

By the way, that's actually my brother's name.

John the Canadian. That's his name.

So when you get wind of something, it means you

hear about something that's going to happen, and it usually

means it's a little bit of a secret. Okay.

So surprise party would be good.

Let's say someone was buying you a gift and then you

hear that they're going to buy a gift for you.

Then you would say, that you got

wind of it in the past tense.

You got wind of it to hear about something to get over.

So we talked about this one a bit.

When you get over something, it means that you're

having a negative emotion, sadness, perhaps, and you need

to get to the point where you're happy.

So if you are in a relationship and

you break up, you aren't happy right away.

You need to get over the relationship.

You're going to feel sad for a few days or

a few weeks or a few months or a year.

You need time to get over it.

You need time to think about why

you're sad and have more positive emotions.

Let's say.

Let's think of another sad thing.

Maybe your dog died.

Your dog was old and your dog died.

You need a few months or even a

few years to get over the sad feeling.

You feel sad because your dog is no longer around.

You need to take time to get over to

get to the point where you're happy again.

Or here's a different one.

So I did to get over, but to get it over with.

So this phrase, I hate cleaning the toilets.

So whenever I have to clean the toilet, I just do

it quickly because I want to get it over with.

When you want to get something over with, you

want it to be done as fast as possible.

A good example is when you get a needle.

If you're at the doctor's office, I'm usually like, I look

away and I just say, just get it over with.

When you say you want to get it over with,

you want it to be done as quickly as possible.

A needle is a great example.

You just want to get it over with.

You don't want to be at the doctor's office waiting

an hour to get a needle in your arm.

You just like, just get it over with.

Just get it done. You can tell. I don't.

I don't really like getting needles.

I look away if I get a needle, but

I definitely want to get it over with.

I want it to be done as quickly as possible.

Oh, to get out of. Yeah.

So there's the literal translation.

Like, you can get out of bed,

you can get out of a chair.

But sometimes people will try to get out

of work, or they'll try to get out

of something they said they would do.

So this guy probably is really sick.

But sometimes people fake being sick

to get out of work.

Sometimes people fake being sick so

they don't have to visit someone.

So they can get out of visiting someone.

Maybe you promised to help someone do a job and you don't

want to go, you might try to get out of it.

You might make some excuses at some point.

So when you try to get out of something, it

means you said you were going to do something or

you were required to do something, and you're trying to

find a way not to do it.

You're trying to get out of doing it to get through.

So we use the.

We said to get over.

You can also say, to get through. Okay.

So when you are not feeling good, you

might need to get through that time.

If someone says, um, I hear that you are

not having that life's rough right now, you could

just say, I just need to get through it.

So you're at a point in your life where you're sad

and you want to be at the point where you're happy

and you need to get through whatever is in the middle.

Um, this is a little different

than to get through to someone.

So when I'm teaching, I try

to get through to my students.

If I'm trying to explain this, I'm

trying to get through to you.

That means I'm trying to get you to understand.

I'm trying to explain it in a

way where you understand what I mean.

This is a tricky one.

Let me think of another example.

Sometimes they put speed cameras up because the

police want to get through to people that

they shouldn't be speeding on that road.

They want people to know and understand

that they shouldn't be speeding there.

So they try to get through to you by giving

you a ticket, which is probably a good way to

get through to people, uh, to get at. Um.

So let me see, what was I.

There's a couple readings of this

I've tried to figure out.

Oh, this is the.

Okay, I'll explain by telling you how

we use this as a question.

If I'm trying to explain something and you don't understand,

you might say, what are you trying to get at?

Or if someone is trying to say something and I'm confused,

I might say, what are you trying to get at?

It's not super polite.

We use this informally, like

between friends or siblings.

But if Jen said to me, um.

Oh, I'm trying to think of a good example of this.

It's like when you say something, but

you're not super clear and you hope

the person understands what you mean.

What are you trying to get at?

Um, let's see.

Oh, if Jen said to me, are you having a.

Are you having another cookie?

Haven't you already had four I could say,

what are you trying to get at?

Are you trying to say I'm putting on weight?

Like, why are you asking me

about how many cookies I'm eating?

Sorry, that's a tricky one.

You might need to look that one up.

And it has other meanings.

Like, you can remove a lid to get at what's inside.

So probably more meanings than just that. To get by.

Okay, so this one also refers to how much

money you have, how much you get paid at

work, and how much money you spend.

Sometimes you just have enough money to get by.

Maybe your car is old and a bit rusty, but

you can't afford a new car, but you do have

a car because you have enough money to get by.

If I made $1,000 a month and my expenses were $1,000 a

month, I would say I have just enough money to get by.

I don't have extra money.

I'm able to pay for everything, but I don't have money

to do things for fun and that kind of stuff.

So I have enough money to get by.

I make enough to get by.

Or if someone said, how are you doing financially?

You could say, we're getting by.

Like, we have just enough money to pay for the

things that we need to buy to get around to.

So here's a list of things I'm probably going

to start on number one, but I'm not going

to get around to the last one until tomorrow.

When you get around to something, it means that's

when you will be able to do it. Okay.

If you bring your car to get fixed,

the mechanic might say, we aren't going to

get around to fixing your cardinal until tomorrow.

We're not going to get around to doing that till later.

And sometimes you just never get around to

doing something that can happen as well.

So again, when you get around to doing something,

it's, it's when you are going to do it.

To get in, to get out.

These are really easy.

You need to get in your car.

You need to get out of your car.

Hopefully you can tell the

difference with these two pictures.

Sometimes I'll tell you when I rented the car to go visit

Brent earlier in July because I have vans, I found it hard

to get in the car because it was so low.

Like a van.

You just get in and out really easily.

So it's easy for me to get in my

van and to get out of my van.

Um, but, uh, a car was a little

trickier because it's so low to the ground.

But you can see this man, he's going to get in his

car and this person is going to get out of the car.

I should have added of to this.

Yeah, you get out of a car.

There are two, um, two additions to the

verb to get, to get down to.

So sometimes Jen and I talked to,

there's work we need to do.

Sometimes we talk and then we say, okay,

we need to get down to work.

So it means to get started, particularly

when referring to work or a project.

Okay, so there's a time to talk.

Maybe you have coffee.

But then eventually you need to get down to work.

You need to get down to doing what you need to do.

You can even say, okay, let's get down to it.

Which means let's get started.

So you can see these people.

They are, they're going to get down to work.

They actually are getting down to work.

If I use the ing form.

So when you start something, especially

work, you get down to it.

I could say this at the beginning of a live stream.

I talk for a bit and then I

could say, okay, let's get down to it.

Let's get started.

To get away.

To get away.

Two different ones. Warning.

There's zombies in the one I

just showed you in the elevator.

This guy is trying to get away.

He's afraid of, I don't know if you watch zombie

movies, but, um, I'm not going to explain zombies too

much, but this guy is trying to get away.

He's trying to escape.

He's trying to run.

So he's not with the people

or zombies that are chasing him.

He's trying to get away.

I think escape is the best verb to replace

this, but you can also decide to get away.

If Jen and I didn't need to work

next week, we might try to get away.

We might go on a vacation.

So this means to escape.

This means to go on a vacation or to

not work for a bit and to go somewhere.

So hopefully we can get away sometime.

This fall we have a little trip planned.

So that should be funny.

To get away with. That should be funny.

That should be fun.

Sorry, I'm the English teacher. Get off. Go on vacation.

That should be fun. Okay.

A person can be funny, but an activity

is usually fun to get away with.

Sometimes people steal and they get caught.

Sometimes people steal and they get away with it.

When you get away with something,

it means that you didn't like.

If you cheat on a test and the teacher doesn't catch you,

you could say, I got away with cheating on the test.

If you use AI to write

something and the teacher doesn't notice.

You could say, oh, I got away

with using AI to write my paper.

If you are a criminal and you steal

money and the police don't catch you, you

could say, oh, I got away with it.

I got away with stealing the

money from wherever you stole it.

Don't steal, by the way, to get across.

So this actually has two meanings.

You can try to get across the bridge.

Okay, so you could say, I'm going to visit

you, but I need to get across the river.

So hopefully I can get across the bridge, but it might

be closed, and then I might have to drive further down,

and I might need to get across the river by using

the ferry, like the boat that your car goes on.

So this can also mean when you're trying

to explain something to someone, I'm trying to

get across the meaning of this for you.

I'm trying to explain it to you so you

can try to get across something physically, like, literally,

you're trying to get across the river.

Or when you're explaining something, you're trying

to get the meaning across to someone.

So two, let me give you two example sentences.

I need to get across the river in

order to get to the United States.

There's a river between Canada, and I

need to get across the river.

I would do that by going across the bridge.

When I explain new things to people, I'm trying to

get across the meaning to them to get around.

This person looks like they're renting a car.

They need a car to get around.

They need a car so they can

drive to different places in the city.

When I went to visit Brent, I had a

rental car so that I could get around.

I needed to go to the grocery store with Brent.

I needed to go to his brother's place.

We needed to get around.

We needed a way to go from place to place.

So to get around means to go from place to place.

If you rent a car, you can get around

easily because you can drive whenever you want to.

So we also use get for emotions

and feelings and those kinds of things.

Like, if you, um.

Let me see, what.

What makes people angry?

If you don't put the lid back on

the peanut butter jar, dad might get angry.

If you run into my car, I might get angry.

You might get angry when someone

says something mean to you.

So we use it for things like angry.

We don't really use it for happy or sad.

Like, you can get sad.

No, we do use it for sad.

You can get sad if someone tells you sad news.

I wouldn't use it for happy, though.

I'm not sure why, but you can definitely get angry.

Like, people get angry all the time.

Sometimes when people are driving, they

get angry at each other.

Um, we use phrases like this as well, like, it's gonna

get really warm today, or I might get cold tonight.

So I'm going to bring a sweater so you can.

When you're experiencing things like hot and cold, you can

get sweaty, you can get hot, you can get cold.

Yeah, we definitely use it for those expressions.

I'm trying to think of any other ones,

but my brain's not working as well as

it did at the beginning of the lesson.

And then you can get home at the end of a trip.

It's nice to get home.

So, as you can see, these are not all phrasal verbs.

We have a lot of different ways to use the verb get.

So I know for me, if I go away, I usually, if I

leave for four days, by day three, I can't wait to get home.

I just want to get home.

So simply, it means to arrive at home.

I'm sure this man is very happy to get home.

He doesn't look very happy, though, does he?

Maybe he's sad to get home, I'm not sure, but

it's always nice to get home after a long trip.