Learn Transport Vocabulary with Robin

See Transcript  

Hello, I’m teacher Robin, welcome to another livestreaming class from my living room. I hope you are all well in this, what’s starting to be, de-confinement process in many countries. And today, I’m going to talk to you about transport or transportation, vocabulary in honor of World Bicycle Day, which is June 3rd. So I’m going to talk to you about all of the different kinds of transportation that you might take, what we call them, some differences between American English and British English, and then I will have you practice by writing examples in the comments.

So today, as I said, we’re going to talk about transportation vocabulary. And I want to focus specifically on the kinds of transportation that we use for our commute. So the word commute means our journey to work. Now, some of us may not be making this journey right now, but this is basically the way that we get from our house to, to our office, to the place that we work. This is our commute.

So the first way that we might take, we might walk. We might walk there if it’s close by or, if not, we might take our bicycle. So we could take our bike, or our bicycle to work. That’s one option. Or maybe you have a motorcycle, or a motorbike or scooter. So those are some options for transportation that we take on our commute to work.

Okay, let’s look at some other kinds of vehicles. So a vehicle is a means of transport. So what I’m talking about today are all different kinds of vehicles, if it is a machine. So basically, we have, I mentioned before, bicycles, we have cars. So if you live a little bit further away then, to get to work, you probably need to take your car. So we have a four door car or two door even. And we also have SUVs, sports utility vehicles, so that’s a little bit bigger, or a truck. A truck normally has space in the back for you to carry things. Or maybe, if you have a big family, you have something like a van. So a van has many seats for you to carry extra people. So these are different kinds of vehicles that you can take to work.

Now I want to look at the difference between ride and drive because this is confusing for many people. So if it is a four wheel vehicle, you drive it. Like a car, I drive my car to work every day. If it is two wheels, or if it is an animal, then you ride it. Okay, so for example, you ride your bicycle because your bicycle has two wheels, you can ride a horse, you can ride a camel, a donkey, etc. Now, these aren’t normal ways that we use to get to work. But I just want to show you the difference between drive and ride. So four wheels, like a car, you drive it, unless you are a passenger. So if you are not driving the car, if you are not physically driving the car, if you are sitting in the passenger seat or in the backseat, then you are riding in the car. Okay, so this is the difference here in a car, if you are the driver, then you drive the car. If you’re not driving, then you ride in a car. And if it’s a two wheel vehicle or an animal, then you ride it.

Now let’s talk about public transportation. So maybe you don’t own your own car or bicycle and maybe you have to take public transportation. So there are many kinds. You have the bus, you have the metro. So there are many different ways to call this depending on where you are. So like if you live in New York City, for example, you take the subway. If you live in London, you take the tube. In other places, it’s called the metro or the underground. So there are different ways to call this, but it’s all the same type of transportation. If it’s above ground, it’s called a tram. So you might take the tram and some people who live places like Seattle, maybe even in the UK and you need to travel from like one island to another. You take a ferry, so this is a small boat that gets you from one place to the other and this could be considered public transportation as well or the train you can take the train into work. So if you use any of these kinds of public transportations, you need to go to a station or in the case of a bus, you go to a bus stop. And normally you have something like a travel card that you use to pay for your transport. So this can be many different types, you might have a 10 trip pass, maybe you have a monthly pass or maybe, if you don’t use the public transportation that often, you just buy like a single ticket, or a one day ticket. So there are different types of tickets. But normally, if you use it to go to work pretty often, you have some sort of a season pass or a travel pass, etc.

Let’s look at one other difference between American English and British English. Often we, in American English, we say “I take the bus”, but you can also take a coach. Now this could be for longer travel and maybe not necessarily going to work, short distances. But that’s one difference. In the UK, often buses are called coaches. So I take a bus or I take a coach to get from one place to another.

Okay, so now that we’ve talked about all these different kinds of transportation, whether it’s your own personal transportation, like a car or a bicycle, or if you take public transportation, I want you to tell me in the comments, which method or mode of transportation do you most often use? And if you use public transportation, what kind of travel, travel card or season pass do you have? Is it 10 trips? Is it a monthly pass, etc. So tell me all of that in the comments. And I just want to remind you about all the opportunities that you have to study English with us here at ABA. So you can, you can use our Live English feature, which gives you new content every day articles, videos like this one, podcasts, fill in the lyrics with songs, that’s a great way to practice. You have all kinds of great content there. Then you have our complete course, which goes from Beginners to Business level, which is based on short films. So you watch a film, you practice your speaking, repeating the dialogue, and you do exercises. So that’s another great way to learn. We’re on all of the social media networks, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. So you can check out our videos there, and our blog, our ABA Journal. So there are so many ways for you to practice English with us. If you want to review more vocabulary like today, transportation, vocabulary, or any other topic that you can possibly think of. We have you covered. So I look forward to reading your answers. Where are you, first? Where do you live? And which mode or method of transportation do you use? Most often, I’ll tell you, I take the metro to work or the bus. So that’s how I get around Barcelona. That’s where I live, Barcelona, Spain. That’s what’s easiest for me. I don’t own a car or a bicycle. I would like to have a bicycle, but actually where I live is a very hilly area. So it’s a bit complicated to have a bicycle where I live, but many people do own bicycles here. So don’t forget June 3rd is Bicycle Day, World Bicycle Day. So I hope that you celebrate by choosing not to take your car and take a different method of transportation instead. So again, I hope you were all doing well in this de-confinement process. And I hope that you’ll join me again, same time next week. So take care. I’ll see you next time. Bye!