Insurance English: The Get Verbs (Part Three)
| This is an entry in the “Insurance English” series.
This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class. This entry includes a listening exercises. You can dowload the MP3 or play it using the button below. (MP3) |
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Insurance is all about preparing for the worst: you have insurance in case something happens that you can’t deal with on your own. Or, in other words, you buy insurance to get ready for the worst-case scenario. (That’s from part one of the guide to get verbs. It never hurts to review, does it?) But, there are even more things that you can say with ‘get,’ and some of them are important when we talk about insurance.
Before You Listen to the Recording
Can you remember the different ways we’ve used the verb ‘get’ so far? Today we’re going to add two more get-phrases with the same meaning: we’re going to call our insurance companies! After all, when you need to use your insurance—when you need it to pay for something for you—the first thing you have to do is call your insurance company. Can you think of a way to say this with the verb ‘get’?
Start the recording now.
After You Listen to the Recording
Alright! ‘Get in touch’ and ‘get in contact with. . .’ are phrases you can use in a lot of different contexts. How would you use these phrases? Who did you get in touch with last? Who got in contact with you last? Is there someone you need to get back to?
Vocabulary
Get in touch: To ‘get in touch‘ means to contact some way. It can be a phone call, an email, or a visit. The phrase ‘get in touch’ is more casual than the phrase ‘get in contact,’ but they mean the same thing.
Get in contact: To ‘get in contact’ is a more formal phrase meaning the same thing as to get in touch. The important thing to remember is that any form of contact counts: it can be any kind of contact: email, telephone. It can even be smoke signals, if you think they will work for you!
Get back to: Often, my students have difficulty with this one. To ‘get back to‘ someone is a phrase meaning ‘to return contact’ or ‘to contact back.’ A good example is voice-mail. If you call someone and have to leave a message on their voice-mail, you might want to tell them to get back to you. It’s similar to ‘call me back,’ except that, like the other phrases, it include possibilities like email, and a meeting in your office.
July 22nd, 2009 at 20:51
Toby, you’re in the process of building an amazing collection of resources here. A Toby a day keeps a teacher’s blues away. Power to you!
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:29
Thanks, Anne!
I’m trying hard. . . I hope it amounts to something.
Remember, your job as a fellow English teacher is to tell me what I could be doing more–or should be doing less–of.
Thanks for the kind words!