phrasal verb · neutral
get down to
UK/ɡet daʊn tuː/US/ɡet daʊn tu/get DOWN to
speakingtask2
start doing something seriously or with focus
Examples
“We should stop chatting and get down to work.”
“After the introductions, the meeting got down to the business of discussing the budget.”
“I finally got down to revising for my exams last night.”
Band 8 sentence
“We wasted the morning talking but after lunch we finally got down to the core issues and made real progress.”
Collocations
- get down to work
- get down to business
Word family
get down to verbgot down to verb (past)getting down to verb (gerund)
Common mistakes
Let's get down work.→Let's get down to work.
We got down to discuss the issue.→We got down to discussing the issue.
Say it for a higher band
5start→6get on with→7+get down to
Synonyms
start seriously
Easily confused
get on with
“Let's get on with the report so we finish on time.”
Related words
Learn this word with the rest of its set, and get reminded at the right time.
In get …
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