Getting Up, Getting Along, Getting By

Story 78 of 80

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Highlighted words are key vocabulary — tap one to see its translation. Colors show the part of speech:

Verb Adjective Adverb Expression

Dilnoza,

You asked me what a day here is actually like, so here is one, from the beginning.

I wake up at ten to five. I get up straight away, because if I lie there for four minutes I lie there for forty. I put on the grey jacket, I set off at twenty past, and I get on the second bus at the corner with about nine other men who all look exactly as tired as I do. We get off at the gate at twenty to six.

The work itself is easy to describe: boxes come in, boxes go out. I check them, I label them, I put them away in the right aisle. On a good shift I move about four hundred of them.

Now the part I have not told anybody at home.

In the third month I nearly gave up. Not because of the work — the work was fine. I could not get on with anybody, because I could not say anything, and a man who cannot say anything slowly stops being a person in a room. I was homesick in a way I had not expected, and I had already looked up the price of a ticket home.

My roommate is called Ravi and he is from Sri Lanka and he has been here for nine years. He noticed. He did not lecture me and he did not cheer me up. He wrote twenty phrasal verbs on the wall by the door in black markerget up, set off, hurry up, hand in, find out, catch up, get on with, fall out with, make up, look after, put up with, take after and eight more — and he made me say one of them out loud, in a whole sentence, every morning before I went out of that door.

It took about eleven weeks. By the sixth month I could get by. Not well. But I could joke with the men on my floor, and I could put up with the ones I did not like, and one of them now looks after my bunch of keys when I go anywhere.

At the bottom of the wall Ravi wrote one more line, not a phrasal verb: get on with people — that is the whole job. He was right, and it was the most useful English anybody has ever taught me.

So do not memorise them one by one out of a dictionary. Six a week, by topic, out loud. And you take after our mother, so you will be faster at it than I was.

Your brother,
Bekzod

Vocabulary from this story

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straight away
darhol
check
tekshirmoq
label
belgi qoʻymoq
aisle
qator, javon qatori
shift
smena, navbat
homesick
uy sogʻinchidagi
looked up
qidirib topmoq
roommate
xonadosh
noticed
sezib qolmoq
lecture
maʼruza oʻqimoq
marker
marker, flomaster
out loud
ovoz chiqarib
joke
hazillashmoq
bunch of keys
kalitlar dastasi
memorise
yodlamoq
dictionary
lugʻat

Grammar from this story

Key patterns that appeared in the text.

phrasal verbs of the daily routine

Kunlik tartib deyarli butunlay frazali feʼllardan iborat: wake up (uygʻonmoq), get up (oʻrnidan turmoq), put on (kiymoq), set off (yoʻlga chiqmoq), get on / get off (chiqmoq / tushmoq), go to bed.

  • I wake up at ten to five.
  • I put on the grey jacket and set off.
  • I get on the second bus at half past five.

phrasal verbs about people

Odamlar haqidagi guruh: get on with (chiqishmoq), fall out with (urishib qolmoq), make up (yarashmoq), put up with (chidamoq), look after (qaramoq), take after (oʻxshamoq). Diqqat: take after “keyin olmoq” emas, oʻxshamoq degani.

  • I get on well with everybody on my floor.
  • You take after our mother, not our father.
  • He looked after me for a whole month.

get by, give up, find out — the ones that decide things

get by — zoʻrgʻa boʻlsa ham uddalamoq, kun koʻrmoq; give up — tashlab qoʻymoq, voz kechmoq; find out — bilib olmoq; work out — hisoblab yoki oʻylab topmoq; catch up with — yetib olmoq.

  • By the sixth month I could get by.
  • In the third month I nearly gave up.
  • I found out what the job really was.

Check your understanding

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1. What nearly made Bekzod go home in his third month?

2. In the letter, 'I could get by' means that he could…

3. 'You take after our mother' means that Dilnoza…