Mailbag Monday: How To Master Tricky Words

A reader asks: How do you use ‘get’?

My answer: I don’t know.

So let’s have a look at Murphy’s English Grammar in Use.

Get

13 pages of rules for one word!

Is that how you master a word?

Study the rules?

Memorize the rules?

Then in conversation, quickly remember the right rule and use it?

But wait! Native speakers don’t know these rules.

However, we use ‘get’ every day, correctly, easily, without thinking…

THE SOLUTION

Keep doing your routine like I teach you.

Every day, listen a little, read a little, speak a little (either to yourself and / or to others).

Then when you hear or see someone use “get”, I want you to get curious.

What does it mean?

What’s another way to say the same thing?

How can I use it?

Next, write down the sentence that has ‘get.’

Do NOT write a translation.

And finally, use it in an email or a conversation.

Do that again and again and again.

And soon, you’ll be a master of ’get.’

Cheers,
Mr. Vig