student asking question

What does "you’ve got" mean here?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

In casual conversation, "you've got" is used as an informal grammar pattern that means something similar to "there is/are." Thus, we can understand "you've got so many people packed in so closely" to mean "there are so many people packed in so closely." Sometimes, "you've got" is meant in the literal sense (to indicate possession of something), so you have to pay careful attention to sentence context in order to determine if it is meant in the literal sense, or used to explain how a situation is. In this video, there is no reference to the possession of something, so we can assume that "you've got" means "there are." Ex: You've got a global pandemic and politicians who don't even care about it. (There is a global pandemic and politicians who don't even care about it.) (Non-literal) Ex: You've got two siblings? (You have two siblings?) (Literal)

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