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CURSO DE INGLS MAIRO VERGARA
MONOLINGUAL PHASE
Lesson 11 | Get Back, Go Back, and Come Back
Hi, this is Melissa Faulkner, coming to you from Durham, North Carolina.
Today were going to talk about three phrasal verbs: Get back, go back,
come back. All three of these phrasal verbs have the word back in it. The
word back can mean a couple of different things. It could mean the back
side of something. So for example, my back, or the back side of your hand,
the back side of a book. It means the other side, the back side. In these
cases, back means to return to something. So either to return to the way
things were. To return to the original state. To return to a place. So, in all
these cases, back means to return, to go back to the original state or the
original way that things were. So lets get started with the first phrasal verb
and youll see a pattern of how these all mean to return to something.
So our first phrasal verb is get back. Now, get back means to return and it
could be to return to a person, to return to a place or to return to a certain
condition or the state of something. The way the thing is.
So lets read the first sentence. For each of the sentences I will read to you
today, I will read the sentence and give a quick explanation of how to use
the phrasal verb in that sentence. So sentence number 1 for get back:
After they had been playing at the creek for three hours, the boys
realized they needed to get back home for dinner before their mother
was angry.
So in this case, there are three boys, probably three brothers. They had been
playing out playing at the creek for about three hours. You can imagine that
CURSO DE INGLS MAIRO VERGARA
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their mother probably told them to be home at a certain amount of time but
maybe they had been gone for longer and they suddenly realized that they
needed to get back home. They needed to return home before their mother
had dinner ready, otherwise she would be a little bit angry. So the boys had
to get back home. Sentence number2:
Sarah called to see if she could get back that coat that she let you
borrow.
So in this case, Sarah had a coat. The coat originally belonged to Sarah and
she let a friend borrow it for an amount of time. After a little while of time,
she wanted to get the coat back. She wanted to have the coat again so that
she could wear it since it originally belonged to her. So she wanted to get
back the coat. She wanted it to be returned. Sentence number 3:
The house needs to get back into a clean state before Dad gets home.
So in this example, you can imagine that theres something has been going
on at the house. Dad is about to come home. Maybe they had a party, maybe
they were playing around in the house. But in any case, you can tell that the
house is probably dirty or messy. The house was originally clean so they
need to return the house to the state when it was clean. The house is dirty;
they need to get it back to being clean. So in this example, you can see that
we were clean, we went to dirty, we want to return back to clean. So in all
three of these sentences, you can see that you are returning to either a
person, a place or a condition.
Lets move on to our second phrasal verb: Go back. Now, this is similar to
get back in that youre returning to something but it could be a place, it
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could be a condition or it could be a time. You are returning to a certain
time.
So lets take a look at sentence number 1 and well go a little further into it:
The store was closed when I went after work so I will have to go back
tomorrow during lunch.
You can imagine sometimes this happens. You want to do an errand or
something after work, you go to the store, maybe you get there around 6 or
6:30, the store has already closed, so you realize that you need to go back to
the store at a different time. At a time when the store is open. So youre
going to have to return to the store, youre going to have to go back to the
store again. Sentence number 2:
Hank forgot what happened in chapter 2, so he had to go back and re-
read the entire chapter.
So in this situation, Hank is reading a book. Maybe he has gone on a couple
of chapters, hes read chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4. Maybe
when he gets to chapter 4, there is something thats happening that he
needs to remember what was that characters name? or what happened in
that situation? so he needs to go back, he needs to return to chapter 2 and
re-read chapter 2 to find that information. So in this case, he is returning to
a place or returning to a time when he read chapter 2. Sentence number 3:
Lily missed her family and was glad that she was going to be able to go
back home over Christmas break.
So in this case, Lily has been away from her family. Maybe shes been at
college, maybe shes been in a different city for a job. But in this case, she
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was at home, she left to go to college or the job and now she wants to go
back home. She is going to return to her home, to where her family is, for
Christmas break. So she is going back to a certain place, shes returning to a
certain place.
Lets go on to our third phrasal verb - come back. There are a couple of
different versions of this phrasal verb. Some of them are similar to the
other phrasal verbs that weve talked to, but well go through each definition
as we go through each sentence. Sentence number 1:
Once I heard the first verse, the song started to come back to me as I
sang the chorus loudly.
So in this case, come back means to return but in this case, were talking
about your memory and what you remember. So often times if someone is
thinking of something and they have a memory that returns to them, they
will say that that memory has come back to them. So in this case, shes
listening to a song. She maybe sort of remembers it a little bit, but once the
first verse comes, the whole song comes back to her. She remembers all of
the words of the song and starts singing loudly. So the memory comes back
to her. It returns.
Sentence number 2:
When you have finished at the grocery store, come back to pick me up at
the mall.
So in this case, this is very similar to get back or to go back. A person is
returning to a place, a former place or position. So in this case, maybe
someone dropped you off at the mall, theyre going to go to the grocery
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store and then theyre going to return to the mall to pick you up. So they
are going to come back to the mall. Theyre going to return to the mall to
pick you up. Sentence number 3:
The little boy always had an attitude and would come back at his
teacher with rude comments.
Now in this case, this one is a little bit different definition than all of the
other ones that we have looked at. In this one, it kind of means to talk back
or to retort, which is kind of like a phrase where you have a little bit of an
attitude towards the person that you are talking to. So in this case, the little
boy had an attitude. Maybe he is talking to his teacher, his teacher tells him
to sit down and he says I dont want to, and I dont have to listen to you!.
Hes coming back at his teacher; he is retorting at her with an attitude. So
in this case, that one is slightly different than the uses of the, other versions
of come back but its still a way to almost return the attitude or return the
thought to the teacher.
So in each of these cases, get back, go back and come back were
returning to the way that something was, either the position, the time, the
condition. Youre coming back, youre going back, youre getting back to the
way that something was.
I hope these explanations have given you a little bit more insight about
these phrasal verbs and I hope to help you in the future with other phrasal
verbs. Thanks.
CURSO DE INGLS MAIRO VERGARA
MONOLINGUAL PHASE
