The Get-Passive
Level B2 · Passive Voice
The get-passive uses get + past participle instead of be + past participle to form a passive sentence. It's more informal and conversational than the be-passive, and it's especially common for things that happen suddenly, unexpectedly, or by accident, and for changes of state: The window got broken during the storm (informal, sounds like an event that happened to someone/something) is closer in feel to My car got stolen last night than the more neutral, formal My car was stolen last night.
How the get-passive works:
- get + past participle, in any tense get can take: gets broken (present), got broken (past), is getting broken (continuous), has got broken (present perfect, more common in British English; has gotten broken in American English).
- The get-passive is especially common with reflexive or self-affecting changes, often without a clear external agent: He got promoted last month. She got invited to the wedding. They got married in June.
- It's also common for accidents, mishaps, or sudden unwanted events, adding a sense of surprise or misfortune that the neutral be-passive doesn't carry as strongly: I got caught in the rain. The kids got lost in the museum. My phone got stolen.
- Unlike be, get cannot be used in passive sentences with stative (non-action) meanings — you can say The door was closed (a state, describing how the door is) but not The door got closed to mean the same static description; get-passive always implies a change or event happening, not a fixed state.
The most common mistake is using the get-passive in formal or academic writing, where it sounds too casual — The results got published in a top journal is far too informal for an academic context; use the be-passive instead: The results were published in a top journal. A second mistake is using get-passive for a permanent, unchanging state — the house got built in 1990 to mean it simply exists this way sounds odd; be-passive is more natural for a state (the house was built in 1990), while get-passive is more natural for a process or sudden event (the house got renovated last year, capturing the change).
Look for get + past participle describing a sudden, unexpected, or informal event — often something happening to the subject rather than something the subject deliberately does. A tone that's casual, conversational, or emphasizes surprise/misfortune signals the get-passive; a formal, neutral, or purely descriptive tone signals the standard be-passive instead.