This mini episode teaches you the useful phrasal verb “to get by.”
Episode 231 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful phrasal verb “to get by.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi, everyone. This is Mobina, from Iran. And you are listening to this amazing podcast, Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 231 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
Today, I am going to teach you an interesting phrasal verb. Do you remember what phrasal verbs are? These are verbs that are made of two parts. They’re made of a verb and then a preposition. And together this combination of a verb and a preposition often has a special and unpredictable meaning.
The phrasal verb that I’m going to teach you today is get by. Get by.
That’s get: g-e-t, by: b-y. Get by.
What does get by mean? Get by has at least two different meanings. And the first one works with an object. If you get by something, or if you get by somebody, that means “you move past something or somebody.” Usually it means you move past something or somebody with difficulty. Maybe you are moving past them in a narrow hallway or in a narrow street.
That is the first meaning of get by.
I think this next meaning of get by is more interesting. You will often hear get by used to mean “to survive.” And when we use it this way, we usually mean “to survive, but just barely.” “To survive with just enough.”
Let me give you a situation where you might hear somebody use the phrasal verb get by with this second meaning.
Let’s say you have a friend who is an artist. And she is a very talented artist, but she does not make very much money. You might say this about your friend: “She is a professional artist, and she does make money, but she barely gets by.” She barely gets by.
And what does it mean when you say that your friend barely gets by? You mean your friend makes enough money to live. Your friend makes enough money to survive—to pay her bills. She can buy groceries. She can pay her electric bill and things like that. But she does not make enough money to buy extra things. So she makes enough money to survive, but just barely. She makes enough to get by.
Notice that when we use get by with this meaning, it does not have an object. We just say, “Get by.” We don’t say, “To get by… something.” When we use get by without a direct object—when it’s just get by—it means “to survive, but just barely.” “To survive or to succeed with not much left over.”
And that is get by, a very useful and common phrasal verb that I think you should know.
Outro
And we have reached the end of episode 231 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can use at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Mobina recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with another episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye! I’ll see you soon.