Talking about public transport 🚌🚈🚋 Real Easy English

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Easy English,

0:03 the podcast where we have real conversations

0:06 in easy English to help you learn.

0:08 I'm Neil and with me is Georgie.

0:11 Hello.

0:11 Did you know that you can now watch a video of this podcast?

0:15 And you can read along with a transcript on our website.

0:19 Visit bbclearningenglish.com.

0:27 Hi, Georgie.

0:28 How are you?

0:29 I'm very well, thank you, Neil.

0:30 How are you?

0:31 How was your journey into work?

0:33 My journey into work was very good today, actually.

0:36 And we're actually talking about transport today.

0:39 How was your journey to work?

0:41 My journey was quite easy this morning,

0:44 actually.

0:44 It isn't always.

0:46 And, Neil, we actually have a very similar commute, don't we?

0:49 I get the Tube to work, which in the UK is the underground train.

0:56 So, I walk to the station around 15 to 20 minutes,

1:00 and then I get the underground train, one train,

1:03 and then I change and then get another one, and then I walk to work.

1:08 What about you?

1:09 I do that, but before,

1:11 before your bit, I have to get a bus as well.

1:15 Are you that far away from the station?

1:19 A couple of miles.

1:20 OK.

1:21 Three kilometres.

1:22 A bit too far to walk, then.

1:24 A bit too far to walk.

1:25 I have walked when the public transport has been unreliable.

1:29 But normally I...

1:31 I get the bus to the Tube stop,

1:35 and then I get on the Tube into work.

1:38 Lovely.

1:39 And do you like the Tube?

1:40 What do you think about it?

1:42 I think the Tube is very convenient, actually,

1:46 because the trains go very frequently.

1:50 So if you miss one, you can wait just a couple of minutes and get the next one.

1:56 And it's probably the quickest way to get into central London

2:01 because there's so much traffic.

2:04 Driving is a really bad idea.

2:06 Yeah, I agree with you.

2:09 It is very reliable.

2:11 It's usually very easy.

2:13 The thing I don't like about it, especially in the morning at rush hour,

2:18 is the number of people on the Tube.

2:21 The...

2:22 the underground trains in London are very old.

2:26 They're very small.

2:27 And they are very crowded in the mornings.

2:31 So 'crowded' means there's lots of people.

2:34 We can also say 'packed'.

2:37 Yeah, and I really don't like being in a tight space

2:41 with lots of people in the mornings, so early in the morning.

2:45 Yeah, I agree, but I'm lucky because I get on the Tube at the first stop,

2:50 so I always get a seat,

2:52 but then by the time you get on, it is usually really packed.

2:57 And the closer you get into central London, the more packed it is.

3:01 You're squashed up against strangers.

3:04 It's not always fun.

3:05 I hate it.

3:06 What about buses?

3:07 Do you like buses?

3:09 Buses are OK.

3:11 They, in London again,

3:13 they are quite frequent

3:16 and that's convenient.

3:18 Not always.

3:18 I mean, they are– they're frequent,

3:21 but they're more unreliable than trains, aren't they?

3:24 There always seems to be roadworks near where I live,

3:28 and when there are roadworks, there are traffic lights and

3:31 then there are delays on the buses.

3:33 So, in the city, public transport can be great.

3:39 But what about when we go outside of the city?

3:42 What do you use to go to other parts of the UK?

3:48 If it's quite far,

3:49 so if I'm going really far north, maybe to Scotland or to,

3:54 I don't know, Manchester or a northern city,

3:57 it's probably better to get the train because it's faster

4:01 and I really like trains.

4:03 You can relax.

4:04 It's a relaxing experience.

4:06 Some of my best travel experiences have been on long-distance trains.

4:12 Yeah?

4:13 Yeah.

4:14 Can you...

4:14 Where have you been

4:15 that's been so fantastic on a train?

4:17 Well, I once went from Prague to Moscow on a train.

4:22 Wow!

4:22 Yeah.

4:23 What was that like?

4:25 Really exciting.

4:26 Why?

4:27 It took about three days, and I was with some friends,

4:32 and we could eat and drink and look out the window.

4:35 The landscape changed frequently.

4:38 It was just exciting.

4:44 Let's recap the vocabulary we heard in this podcast,

4:48 starting with some useful adjectives to describe public transport.

4:53 For example, we had 'crowded', which means very busy.

4:57 We also hear 'packed'.

4:59 We had 'reliable', which describes something you can trust,

5:03 and 'unreliable', which describes something you can't trust.

5:07 We heard 'frequent', which describes something that happens often.

5:12 And we also heard 'delayed',

5:14 which means something, like public transport, comes later than expected.

5:19 That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.

5:21 Don't forget to go to our website

5:23 where you can get a free worksheet to download to test what you've learnt.

5:28 It's at bbclearningenglish.com.

5:30 See you then.

5:30 Goodbye.

5:31 Bye.