student asking question

How is it different between saying "get to shake" and just "shake"?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

To "get to do" something means to have the opportunity to do something. When we use "get to" it is to emphasize the face that we want to do this thing but there was no chance to. In this case, Chandler wants to "shake his belly" but he won't have the chance to. Simply saying "shake" here would miss the nuance. "I didn't shake my belly" doesn't give any information about why he didn't. Whereas "I didn't get to" lets us know that it wasn't his choice to not do it. Ex: My whole family gets to go to Disneyland this summer. Ex: I didn't get to eat anything all day. Work was so busy.

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