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GET vs. BECOME

Get is used to describe a progressive state of change and is more common in spoken English. It is often used with comparative adjectives to indicate something is changing, such as getting colder or getting better. Become is used to refer to a complete change and is often used with nouns to indicate a full transformation, such as a student becoming a teacher or a city becoming safer. While both can be used with adjectives, get implies something is progressing and become implies something is fully changed. The key difference is that get is much more frequent in casual speech.

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179 views1 page

GET vs. BECOME

Get is used to describe a progressive state of change and is more common in spoken English. It is often used with comparative adjectives to indicate something is changing, such as getting colder or getting better. Become is used to refer to a complete change and is often used with nouns to indicate a full transformation, such as a student becoming a teacher or a city becoming safer. While both can be used with adjectives, get implies something is progressing and become implies something is fully changed. The key difference is that get is much more frequent in casual speech.

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CrixLord
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The difference may seem a little complicated at first because

both words are used in the sense of "begin to be," however


there is a simple rule.

Get is used with an adjective for a progressive state, this is


when things are changing. Get is more common in recent
spoken English. It is often used with a comparative (words with
____er, or more ___). Get does have some other meanings,
but today we'll just focus on this one.

 The weather's getting colder.


 I want to get better at speaking in English.
 The stock prices are getting even higher.

Become is often used with a noun, referring to a complete


change. The difference seems to be very large.

 The student became the teacher.


 New York has become a safer city in the last twenty years.
 The audience became so silent, you could hear a pin drop.

Both get and become can be used with adjectives, (he got


angry; he became angry), but again, got seems
more progressive and became seems more complete. Where
do you draw the line? That's up to you.

One clear difference that is that get is far more common in


spoken English. So if you are working on using a more typical
spoken style, using get is a safe choice. 

Just keep listening to how native speakers use get and become,
and try to speak like they speak. It might seem tough now, but
it gets easier with practice.

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