Hi. I'm Gill at www.engvid.com, and today we're going to look at the verb "to get".
Now, we've looked at this verb in other lessons, but that's because it is used so much, in
so many different ways that it does need several lessons to cover the different ways that it's
used. And we have 11 expressions here which are a little bit more difficult to understand.
If you translate each word individually, you probably still might not understand what the
meaning really is, because these are, like, metaphorical or idiomatic expressions which
really need to be explained in other words. So, let's have a look and I think you'll see
So, the first one is: "To get out of hand". If things get out of hand... Well, you think:
"Hand. Out of hand?" It means things get out of control. So if you imagine you're holding
something with your hand, you're controlling it; but if things get out of hand, they go
free, anything could happen then. So, if you're losing control of something, you could say:
"Things are getting out of hand." Okay.
Secondly: "To get rid of something". This word "rid", it means to throw something away
usually or give something away that you don't want anymore. "Let's get rid of it. You know,
that old chair, it's broken. It's just taking up space in the room; we can't sit on it,
we can't get it repaired. Let's get rid of it." Okay. Throw it away, give it away, just
leave it on the street, some people do, they leave all sorts of things on the street, and
the local council have to come and pick them up. So, to get rid of something, okay, that
Next one: "To get used to something" is when it's a new thing or maybe a new person, "to
get used to someone", to get used to a new person. If you're working in an office, a
new person starts working there, maybe they're a bit different from normal, from your other
colleagues for some reason, you have to get used to them; their personality, the things
they say, their way of working. So, you have to get used to them. Or to get used to some
situation, some new situation. Okay.
"To get back home", so "get back" is a phrasal verb, verb plus preposition. We're here at
a party, but we're a bit tired, it's not very exciting, we want to get back home. We'd rather
be at home; we would prefer to be at home. "Let's get back home, shall we? It's late
anyway." So, that's fairly straightforward.
"To get hold of something" is just to hold, to get hold of. Maybe it could be in a situation
where somebody is falling down a cliff or something, they could be falling off a building,
and to stop themselves from falling, they need to get hold of something, a curtain in
a window or a tree growing on the cliff, or whatever it is, get hold of something before
you fall right down a very long way. So: "Oh, I've got to get a hold of something." Okay?
"To get going". "Get going", "We need to get going". "We need to go", but it's a way of
saying: We need to get going. We need to start, start travelling, or to get started on a job
Another phrasal verb: "To get together for a chat", for example, or to get together for
a meal, all sorts of reasons. So: "To get together" is to meet someone, a friend, relative.
"Let's get together next week for a chat, for a talk, for a meal. Just get together
because we haven't seen each other for a while." Okay.
"To get a move on", if you're, you know, it's time we got a move on, we need to get moving,
either you've got to be somewhere else, we need to leave here and start travelling to
get a move on. You've got to move forward. All right.
"To get on in your career", "to get on", another phrasal verb, is to progress, maybe promotions,
new positions, learning new skills. You're getting on earning a higher salary, you're
getting on making progress in your career, in your job, your profession.
This kind of getting on, though, has a different meaning. This is when somebody is getting
older. I've put "She", but it could equally be "He". If they're getting on a bit, it's
a way of saying: "Oh, you know, they're getting quite old now", not that that's a bad thing,
but maybe, I don't know. Possibly for the kind of job where you need to be very fit,
physically fit, or maybe a ballet dancer, for example, they can't continue being a ballet
dancer probably from the age of 50 or 60; they might do training of other ballet dancers,
but: "She's getting on a bit now." We can't give her the main lead in Swan Lake anymore.
It would need to be somebody younger. So, to be getting on a bit, being a bit old for
Okay, and then finally, another phrasal verb: "To get away with something" is if you've
done something wrong, maybe you made a mistake at work, but nobody notices, and nobody else
gets blamed for it probably either, but nobody has noticed that mistake. So you don't get
punished for it, you don't get being told off by your boss, your boss doesn't get angry
with you because your boss doesn't know what the mistake was. So, you got away with it.
Everything's okay, everything's continuing as if that thing that you did didn't happen.
So, that's our eleven examples, there. I hope that's been helpful just to show a few ways
that the verb "to get" is used in a more complex way. If you'd like to do a quiz on this, please
go to the website: www.engvid.com, and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Okay. Bye.