In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. In this series of language tips to accompany the Real Vocabulary theme we look at how you can expand your vocabulary in English by using different words and expressions instead of core vocabulary items.
This set of language tips explores the words and phrases we use to describe movement. This week’s tip looks at verbs and phrases that mean to arrive:
Arrive is one of the most frequent verbs that mean ‘to get to a place’, but get is also frequently used, followed by an adverb or a preposition:
- What time does your train arrive?
- I finally arrived home at five in the morning.
- They arrived in Paris at 6pm.
- Four police officers arrived at the house unannounced.
Arrive also means ‘to come to a place in order to start living there permanently’:
- Her grandparents arrived in America in 1956.
- They arrived here with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in.
get somewhere to arrive at a place:
- How long does it take to get from London to Leeds?
- I was exhausted by the time we got home.
- Give me a call when you get here.
- I normally get to the office about 9.
Get is more informal than arrive.
reach to arrive somewhere, especially after a long journey:
- When we finally reached the campsite, it was already dark.
- What time do you expect to reach New York?
There are a number of phrasal verbs that mean arrive. We will look at them in the next post.
Did you know that Macmillan Dictionary includes a full thesaurus? This page lists more ways to say ‘to arrive‘.
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