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Welcome to this video lesson. We are going to look at three grammatical constructions.
Firstly, 'Used To' plus verb in the infinitive.
Secondly, 'To Be Used To' plus verb in the ING or a noun.
And thirdly, 'To Get Used To' plus verb in the ING or a noun.
They look very similar, but can you understand their different meanings from the video?
I wonder if the alien ever found his friends.
Well, now we are going to look at some of the constructions that were used in the video.
Number one: 'I used to work for the department of education
before I volunteered for this space exploration programme.'
So the alien worked for the education department in the past, this is no longer true
the situation has changed. The alien is now exploring space.
The second example, from the gorilla:
'This jungle used to be huge, stretching as far as the eye can see,
but the humans have cut down the trees.'
So in this one, the jungle was very big in the past,
but this is no longer true because the humans have cut down the trees.
This one is an example of 'to get used to':
'We are getting used to moving our home every few years
as the humans destroy more of the jungle'
Moving home is happening more and more often,
it is becoming usual for the gorillas. They are becoming accustomed to moving.
In this example the alien says:
'on my planet I'm used to rocky and volcanic land'.
A rocky, volcanic landscape is the situation that the alien knows well, the alien is accustomed to that landscape.
The alien is not familiar with the landscape on earth.
The alien then starts talking about food and says:
'I'm not used to the food here. I'm used to eating volcanic rock.'
So the alien does not know this type of food from earth, it is not familiar to her/him.
For the alien, it is normal to eat volcanic rocks.
In this example, the alien uses the construction 'get used to' with the modal verb 'could':
'I could get used to eating bananas'.
This suggests the alien would like to perhaps eat more bananas in the future,
because this first experience of eating bananas was enjoyable.
The alien could become accustomed to this food in time.