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Speaker 1: In the last podcast episode, I showed you some idioms

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using the verb get. Well, after that, I was thinking

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and just the word get all by itself has more

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than ten different meanings and uses yeah get let's get going.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from

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New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.

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Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael

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here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.

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And this is Happy English Podcast Episode seven forty eight.

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Eleven meanings of get. Before we dive into the different

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meanings of get, I want to take a minute to

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look at the basic get grammar parts are get, got, gotten.

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That's American English. I believe that in British English they

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prefer to use get, got got. For example, Jack has

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got a new job. This is more common in British English.

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Jack has gotten a new job. This is more common

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in American English. And like I mentioned before, in conversational

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American English, we prefer to use the simple past when

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there is something that happened in the recent past, so

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I would say Jack got a job. I'll save the

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details of how Americans use the present perfect for another podcast.

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And now let's dive into the eleven meetings and uses

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of get. First of all, get means understand, and get

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is a more conversational word than understand. For example, sometimes

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when I watch TV in Japanese, I don't always get

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what they are talking about. The boss speaks so softly

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it's sometimes impossible to get what he said. And it's

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from this meaning of get that we get the phrase gotcha.

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I got what you said means I understood what you said.

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I got what you said, I got what you said,

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got what you gotcha, got it gotcha. Next, we use

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get to mean receive something, and that's generally because of

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another person's action. I got a nice bottle of wine

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for my birthday. I got several emails this morning from

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my students. Also in the receiving sphere, we use get

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to mean buy something like this. I got a new

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cap at the department store last weekend. I want to

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get the new iPhone when it comes out. The third

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receiving use of get is that we use get to

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mean obtain or achieve, and this is generally because of

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your action or your own effort. Tommy got a job

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at the bank on Madison Avenue. One of my ace

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students took the TOIC exam and got an eight point

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fifty score. Moving along, where when get is followed by

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an adjective, it has the meaning of become. It gets

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dark earlier and earlier in the fall. According to a documentary,

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I saw a baby elephant gets big very quickly. Keep

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in mind get means become only when it's followed by

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an adjective. If get is followed by a noun, we

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can't use get to mean become. I can say John

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became a teacher when he was twenty four years old,

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but I can't say John got a teacher. John got

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a teacher means something like John found a teacher to

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work with him. That's different than John became a teacher.

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Next up, we use get followed by some gerns. That's

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the ing to mean begin doing that thing. One example

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of this is get working, which means to start working

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hard or seriously. We need to get working on this project.

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The deadline is next Friday. I really have to get

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working on clearing out the garage. It's a disaster. A

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similar slang expression is get cracking, which also means to

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start doing something. We also use get moving, with the

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same meaning in slang, this garage is a mess. I'm

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gonna get cracking the first thing tomorrow morning. Your exam

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is tomorrow and you haven't started studying. You'd better get moving.

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We also use get going, which means to leave. It's

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getting late, I have to get going. We'd better get

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going to the airport now or we'll miss our flight.

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Get working, get cracking, get moving, and get going. Okay,

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two more, get or get two means to arrive. We

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can take an early flight and get to Boston by noon.

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I worked overtime, so last night I got home after eleven.

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And finally, get means fetch, which is an old fashioned

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word that means to go somewhere, pick up something, and

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come right back. For example, when I was watching TV,

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I got a drink during the commercial Jack gets the

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kids from school at three thirty. Okay, I hope you

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got that all. Keep in mind, the best way to

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remember this and any other world word or phrase in

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English is to take that word or phrase, write it

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in a sentence that's true for you or true in

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your world, and then memorize your sentences and check this out.

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Did you know that you can get the chance to

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practice this kind of English with me directly. You can

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get more practice using your English when you join my

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podcast Learner's Study Group. There you can make new friends,

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join us for live group lessons every week where we

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practice these podcast lessons together. Plus you get access to

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the pdf, transcript and audio download for every Happy English

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podcast in the past and in the future. And on

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top of that, each episode has exercises where you can

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practice this English point with speaking and writing checked by me.

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To learn more, just visit Myhappy English dot com and

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choose podcast lesson eight. Remember, learning another language is not easy,

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but it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you

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on your journey.

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