Phrasal Verbs with GET — Top 20 in Business Context
CEFR B1-B2 • Phrasal Verbs • The most flexible verb in business English and its 20 most useful combinations
"Get" is the workhorse phrasal verb
If you had to pick one verb to learn in English business contexts, "get" would be near the top. It combines with a dozen prepositions to form some of the most-used expressions in meetings, emails, and Slack: "get back to," "get through to," "get behind," "get out of." Native speakers reach for them constantly. This page covers the 20 phrasal verbs with "get" you will hear daily, with click-to-listen examples.
Communication and follow-up
get back to (someone)
respond after a delay
"I will get back to you on that by EOD."
get through (to someone)
make contact / be understood
"I have been trying to get through to procurement all week."
get across
communicate effectively
"The slide did not get the urgency across — let us redo it."
get in touch (with)
contact
"I will get in touch with the legal team this morning."
Progress and obstacles
get on with (it)
continue, proceed
"Let us stop debating and get on with the work."
get ahead (of)
stay or move in front of
"We need to get ahead of this issue before it surfaces in the press."
get behind (on)
fall behind on schedule
"We got behind on the migration after the security review."
get past (something)
move beyond an obstacle
"Once we get past the legal review, the contract is straightforward."
Decisions and outcomes
get out of (something)
avoid an obligation
"There is no way to get out of the all-hands tomorrow."
get around (something)
find a workaround
"We got around the API rate limit by batching requests."
get to (something)
eventually do
"I will get to the design-doc review later this afternoon."
get into (something)
begin to discuss in detail
"Before we get into the numbers, let me set the context."
People and relationships
get along (with)
have a good working relationship
"The two leads get along really well — that helps the team."
get over (something)
recover from an emotional setback
"It took the team a while to get over the layoff news."
get rid of
remove or eliminate
"We need to get rid of the legacy auth flow before Q4."
Time and execution
get going
begin or move
"Let us get going on the proposal — we have an hour before the call."
get done
complete
"I want to get the deck done before the weekend."
get on top of (something)
gain control of
"I am still trying to get on top of the inbox after vacation."
get away (with)
escape consequences for something
"We cannot get away with shipping without a security review."
get in (a meeting / on the calendar)
schedule
"Can we get in a 30-minute sync this week?"
Hear them in real business sentences
"Before we get into the numbers, I want to set context. We got behind on the migration after the security review, but we got around the bottleneck by parallelizing two workstreams. We are now back on track."
"I am trying to get through to the procurement team this week. If I do not hear back by Friday, I will get in touch with their VP directly."
"Once we get past the legal review, we can get going on the implementation. I will get back to you with the timeline by EOD."
Common mistakes
- "I will return to you on that" → "I will get back to you on that." "Return to" is non-native; "get back to" is the standard.
- "I cannot get the message" → "I cannot get my message across" or "I am not getting through to them." "Get the message" alone has a different meaning ("did you understand?").
- "We are getting behind" needs a noun: "We are getting behind on the migration." Without the noun, sounds incomplete.
- "I am getting on top of inbox" → "I am getting on top of THE inbox." "The" is required before specific nouns.
- "Let us get on it" = OK casually but vague. Better: "Let us get going on the proposal." Specific is stronger.
Practice: Test yourself
Tap each question to reveal the answer.