VOA慢速英语2019-- The Passive Voice with 'Get'

 

Have you ever gotten invited to a wedding? If so, who got married -- or will get married? Where was the wedding and did you have fun? I went to two weddings last year – one in New York and one in Connecticut. Getting dressed up can be a lot of fun, at times.

In spoken English, the verb get sometimes replaces the verb be in passive sentences. We call this the “get-passive” and you just heard me use it several times as I talked about weddings.

Use of the get-passive is considered conversational¹. But it is sometimes the better choice, even in written English. It can provide a clearer meaning.

And I am getting excited about today’s program. So let’s get started!

Passive voice

First, here’s a quick refresher on active and passive voice.

In an active sentence, the subject performs the action of the verb. The object receives it. Take the sentence, “I broke my favorite cup.” The subject is I and the object is my favorite cup.

In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action of the verb. So, in the standard be-passive, the sentence becomes, “My favorite cup was broken.” But, in the get-passive, the verb get replaces be. It becomes, “My favorite cup got broken.”

The get-passive has two structures: get + adjective and get + past participle.

For both structures, the verb tense of get changes based on whether you're talking about the present, past or future.

Let’s first talk about get + adjective.

Get + adjective

The verb get can be followed by some adjectives to express the idea of change or becoming something. We use this structure for people and things. We can talk about the weather getting hot or getting cold, for instance. A person can also get dressed up, get nervous, get hungry, get rich or get sick.

Here’s an example with the adjective hungry:

What time are we meeting for lunch? I am getting hungry.

Notice the use of get in the present continuous verb tense.

Get + hungry is such a fixed² English collocation that it sounds unnatural³ any other way. Saying, “I am becoming hungry,” for instance, sounds so unnatural that the listener might be unsure of its meaning.

Get + past participle

Get can also be followed by the past participle – the form of a verb that usually ends in -ed or -en.

The verb get expresses action so, for this structure, we use it with action verbs. Action verbs express physical or mental action. They include such verbs as break, eat, choose and marry.

Listen to an example:

His brother got married last year.

Married is the past participle of marry.

And, you remember this one from earlier:

My favorite cup got broken.

Broken is the part participle of break.

For the get-passive, we do not use stative verbs, such as know, believe, say and understand. You cannot, for example, say, “The speaker will get understood.”

So, the get-passive is used with action verbs. But, the be-passive can be used with action and stative verbs.

However, depending on what is said, the get-passive can offer clarity⁴ between an action and a state. Take the sentence, “His brother was married last year.” Does the speaker mean his brother’s wedding happened last year? Or that his brother had a spouse⁵ last year, but does not now?

Desirable or negative

So, the get-passive can help bring attention to specific details about a person or action. For that reason, we often use it to talk about something either desirable, unexpected or negative.

Here is another example of a desirable event:

Vanessa got promoted to program director!

We also use it to talk about things that are negative or unexpected, as in this:

Please be careful. You don’t want to get hit by a car.

And, of course, this next thing is both undesirable⁶ and unexpected:

The company’s server got hacked⁸ last week.

But, sometimes, the get-passive serves none of these purposes. Sometimes, we simply use it to express everyday things in a conversational way. For instance, someone might ask:

What time does the mail get delivered?

Common expressions

And lastly, the get-passive in used in some expressions, like some you already heard – get married, for example – plus others, like get lost, get done, get ready and get dressed. Some are idiomatic⁹ while others are simply collocations. But they are so fixed in English that to say them another way would be terribly hard on the ears.

Whew! I’m getting winded. I had better stop here. Remember to leave a comment on our website. We want to hear about that wedding you got invited to!

I’m Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

dress up – v. to put on or wear formal clothing

conversational – adj. relating to or suggesting informal talk

collocation – n. use of certain words together

spouse – n. a husband or wife

hack⁷ – v. to secretly get access to the files on a computer or network in order to get information or cause damage

idiomatic – n. relating to expressions that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but has a meaning of its own

1 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

2 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

3 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

4 clarity   

n.清澈，透明，明晰

参考例句：

• His writing has great clarity of style.他的写作风格清晰易懂。
• Mozart's music is characterized by its naivety and clarity.莫扎特的音乐特色是纯朴兴清澈。

5 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

6 undesirable   

adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子

参考例句：

• They are the undesirable elements among the employees.他们是雇员中的不良分子。
• Certain chemicals can induce undesirable changes in the nervous system.有些化学物质能在神经系统中引起不良变化。

7 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。

8 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

9 idiomatic   

adj.成语的，符合语言习惯的

参考例句：

• In our reading we should always be alert for idiomatic expressions.我们在阅读过程中应经常注意惯用法。
• In his lecture,he bore down on the importance of idiomatic usage in a language.他在演讲中着重强调了语言中习惯用法的重要性。