English for Beginners: Keep in touch!

Learn four common expressions you can use in letters and emails. The expressions include: "keep in touch", "stay in touch", "be in touch", and "get in touch". This is an essential class for beginners. These expressions are also useful in many social situations. I'll teach you how exactly to use these expressions, and when you should use each one. Make sure you've understood everything by taking the quiz at http://www.engvid.com/english-....for-beginners-keep-i

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this beginner lesson on "Keeping In Touch". So, today, I will look at some very common verbs that we use with the term "in touch", to talk about staying in contact and keeping communication with our friends, our relatives, and loved ones.

So, "to stay in touch", or "keep in touch", or "be in touch", or "to get in touch", basically means to remain in contact or communication. To keep communication. Stay in contact, stay in communication with someone in your life. So, three verbs that we have here are: "keep", "stay", and "be". So, it's possible to say, you know: "Oh, don't worry. This person is leaving. But don't worry, I will keep in touch. I will stay in touch. I will be in touch." So, you can use this as an imperative. You could say: "Okay, keep in touch. Bye." You know, contact me, stay in contact, in communication with me. "Be in touch!", "Keep in touch!", "Stay in touch!"

Let's look at some example sentences of different ways and different tenses we can use these phrases in. So: "We didn't keep in touch.", "We didn't stay in touch." are both possible. And, what you mean here is you had a friend and maybe you lost contact with the friend, and you want to communicate that: "We lost contact. We didn't stay in touch. We didn't keep in touch." You can also say: "We lost touch." So, we lost communication. We lost touch. Okay?

And, again, you can also use: "be in touch". Now, again, the verb "to be" is special, so you can't say: "We didn't be in touch." You have to say, you know: "I was in touch with someone." Or: "I wasn't in touch with someone." And in this context, you're talking about contacting a company and maybe you contact them two times, and you say: "Oh, I was in touch with someone who works there. I was in communication, in contact with a person who works at that company."

Okay, and I put "get in touch" as separate from these because "to get in touch" has a slightly different meaning than, you know, "keep", "stay", "be". So, these talk about the state of remaining; keeping and staying in touch. "To get in touch" means to initiate the communication, to start the contact, to get in touch. Okay?

So, I have three example sentences. "Get in touch with me when you arrive." You're talking to a friend, the friend is coming to visit you by bus, by airplane. It doesn't matter. And you're telling them: "Okay, get in touch with me. Contact with me." Okay? This is the meaning. "Contact me when you arrive." Now, you will notice I circled the preposition "with" because if you want to talk about the person that you're going to get in touch with, you must use "with". And again, you can also use "with" with: "Keep in touch with me.", "Stay in touch with me.", "Be in touch with me." as well.

Okay, let's look at two more with "get", and then we'll recap everything. So: "I tried to get in touch with her." I attempted to get in contact, but I wasn't successful. "I will get in touch with you later." So, I will contact you later. Okay?

All right, so, review. "Keep in touch!", "Stay in touch!", "Be in touch!" they all mean to keep communication, to stay in contact, stay in communication with a person. "To get in touch" means to start the communication, to initiate the contact. And you can use, especially "Keep in touch" when you're saying good bye to a person that you're not sure if you will see them again for a long time. You could say: "Okay, yeah, keep in touch. Stay in touch. Be in touch." And, "To get in touch", you can, you know, use it as a command to tell a person to contact me. Okay?

So, if you would like to test your understanding of this material, as always, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Keep in touch.