Let's Learn English! Topic: Describing Cars and Transportation 🚈🚃🚙 (Lesson Only)

0:00 Well, hello and welcome to this English

0:02 lesson about describing cars and transportation.

0:05 I do want to mention that this isn't just a lesson about cars.

0:10 This isn't just a lesson, an English lesson for people who love cars.

0:15 In this English lesson, I will describe cars and trains and the subway,

0:20 and even one of the slides has a bicycle on it.

0:24 I will teach you adjectives, words that you can use to describe different ways

0:29 of moving around in vehicles and using city transportation.

0:34 So once again, welcome to this English

0:36 lesson about describing cars and transportation.

0:39 I have about 30 words that I'm going to teach you in this lesson.

0:44 Cramped.

0:45 When you describe a form of transportation as cramped,

0:49 it means having a lot of people inside.

0:53 You can use this word to describe a train, subway, a car.

0:58 If I went to visit someone and I rode

1:02 with other people in their car, and if there were,

1:04 let's say it was a smaller car and there were six of us in there,

1:08 it might be really cramped.

1:10 I would need to sit like this.

1:12 We also sometimes use the word crowded,

1:15 but I like the word cramped because I think

1:18 it gives a better sense of what's happening here.

1:21 Some of you might say this.

1:23 This train car isn't that cramped at all.

1:26 But for me, when I see almost everyone

1:29 standing when I take the train to Toronto, I feel like it is very cramped.

1:34 It's very crowded, having a lot of people inside, spacious.

1:41 So this is the opposite.

1:42 You can see that spacious means having a lot of space inside for people.

1:47 So if you see this V vehicle here, it looks like a minivan.

1:52 Everyone has lots of room, especially the kids in the back seat.

1:56 They even have some extra room between them.

2:00 I would say the inside of this minivan is very, very spacious.

2:06 No one is bumping up against someone else.

2:10 Everyone has lots of room.

2:12 They probably could even have some stuff on the seat beside them.

2:16 But spacious, having a lot of space inside for people, roomy.

2:23 Now this is really just the same as spacious, having plenty of space inside.

2:28 In fact, spacious and roomy mean the same thing.

2:32 And we don't always just use this to talk about vehicles.

2:36 You could say, oh, I took an Uber and it was very roomy inside.

2:41 Or, I'm trying to think of another example here.

2:44 But certainly this vehicle with no people in it looks very roomy,

2:48 but the seats as well are very far apart

2:52 and everyone would be very comfortable because it is roomy,

2:56 having plenty of space inside, convenient, easy to use or access.

3:04 So this is actually a streetcar in Toronto.

3:07 So when I say convenient,

3:08 it could mean a number of things could mean that the stop

3:13 where this picks people up is right outside your house or apartment.

3:18 It could mean that it very quickly brings you from home

3:22 to work and that it runs on time and frequently.

3:27 So if I said to someone, you know, I live in Toronto,

3:29 I don't need a car because the streetcars are so convenient,

3:32 or the subway is so convenient,

3:34 or the bus stop is right outside my apartment, it's very convenient.

3:40 So when you describe a form of transportation as convenient,

3:44 it means easy to use or access.

3:48 Packed completely full of people.

3:51 So this is similar to cramped.

3:53 Yes, or crowded.

3:54 When you are on a vehicle that looks like this, you could say it is packed.

3:59 We wouldn't really use this to talk about a car, though.

4:03 We would mostly use this to talk about public transportation.

4:06 The bus was packed.

4:09 The subway car was packed.

4:10 You can even use it to talk about a location.

4:14 The mall was packed yesterday.

4:16 There were lots of people there.

4:20 Nimble moves and turns easily in tight spaces.

4:24 So there's a reason why Doordash and Uber eats

4:29 and food delivery people use bikes and E bikes.

4:33 An E bike is an electric bike.

4:35 Because it moves and turns easily in tight spaces.

4:39 If I needed to deliver food 2km away from a restaurant in a city,

4:46 I would want to use an E bike or a bike

4:49 because it's easy to move between cars and buses and people.

4:54 This is how Bob rides a bike.

4:59 So it's nimble.

5:00 It moves and turns easily in tight spaces.

5:03 It's probably faster to drive two kilometres in a busy city using

5:09 a bike or E bike than it is to drive a car.

5:13 Because with a car you are the opposite.

5:15 It's not very nimble.

5:17 You're stuck in traffic.

5:20 Gas guzzler so uses a large amount of fuel very quickly.

5:25 This is actually the car that my mom and dad had in the late 80s.

5:31 I think it was, I think it's a Ford Crown Victoria and it was a gas guzzler.

5:37 So you can kind of picture this.

5:40 When you have, a car like this, you fill it up

5:44 with gas and then it just uses gas very, very quickly.

5:49 And so we would call it a, gas guzzler.

5:52 Right now, the price of gas in Canada and around the world keeps going up.

5:59 And so if you have a gas guzzler, it's not very nice.

6:02 By the way, this is kind of an informal term, gas guzzler.

6:07 But if, you said to someone in Canada or in the United States that, oh,

6:12 my car is a gas guzzler, they Know that it uses a lot of gas.

6:16 Usually a gas guzzler has a really big engine with lots of cylinders,

6:21 probably an eight cylinder engine.

6:23 And when you drive it uses lots and lots of gas or petrol.

6:28 If you're in Britain, the opposite of course would be fuel efficient.

6:32 Uses a small amount of fuel to travel far.

6:35 I think this is a Toyota Prius.

6:38 Oh, it's actually a Prius hybrid, isn't it?

6:40 You can see that on the front.

6:42 This is the, one of the most fuel efficient cars in the world.

6:46 It uses very little gas or very little fuel,

6:50 a very small amount to go very, very far.

6:53 I have a co worker who used to have a Toyota Prius and he was very,

6:58 very happy with it because it was so fuel efficient he could drive

7:04 so far without filling up with gas that he was amazed every time.

7:09 His other vehicle was a Ford pickup truck, which would be the opposite.

7:13 A Ford pickup truck would be a bit more of a gas guzzler.

7:16 Not totally, but his Prius was very, very fuel efficient.

7:21 Armored and bulletproof.

7:24 So an armored vehicle is protected with strong materials for safety.

7:29 So this is a vehicle designed for safety so that the people inside are safe.

7:35 I should have put a picture here of we call a Brinks truck

7:39 or an armoured truck that they use to carry money in the city.

7:44 In Canada, when they bring lots of money from one place to another,

7:48 they usually use an armoured vehicle,

7:51 to protect the people inside while they carry large amounts of money.

7:56 But armoured, protected with strong materials for safety.

7:59 And then there is a U in armored.

8:02 In Canada, the United States there is no U.

8:06 And then bulletproof, designed to stop bullets and protect passengers.

8:11 So this might look like a normal vehicle to you,

8:14 but it probably has bulletproof proof glass

8:17 and the doors and sides are probably bulletproof as well.

8:22 It's designed to stop bullets and protect passengers.

8:25 The leaders of countries when they travel will often be in, bulletproof

8:31 vehicle that will look a lot like this in North America.

8:35 If I saw four of these driving down the highway,

8:39 I would think it must be Prime Minister Carney,

8:42 it must be the leader of our country because that's

8:46 usually who would drive around in a bulletproof vehicle like that.

8:52 Modern uses new design and up to date technology.

8:56 So, so I do not have modern vehicles.

9:00 In fact, the last vehicle I bought was

9:03 the first vehicle to have a backup camera, which to me was really modern.

9:08 But the vehicle is 10 years old.

9:10 But this to me is a very modern vehicle.

9:13 The entire dash is a screen and you can

9:18 see that the person driving it can see the map,

9:21 probably can see the speedometer and all of the other indicators on that dash.

9:26 But this to me would be a modern vehicle,

9:29 uses new design and up to date technology.

9:35 Reliable.

9:35 This is a, I think this is a Toyota Hilux,

9:37 one of the most reliable trucks in the world.

9:40 I'm not 100% sure though.

9:42 But reliable works well and does not break down often.

9:47 So if you wanted to have a vehicle that was very, very reliable,

9:53 where you can drive for years and you never need to really

9:58 fix anything except maybe put on new brake pads or change the oil,

10:04 I think this would be a good vehicle for you.

10:06 This is not, I'm not sponsored by the way, by Toyota.

10:10 But reliable works well and does not break down often.

10:15 Most of my vehicles have been quite reliable.

10:19 I'm pretty happy about that.

10:20 I do tend to get my vehicles serviced regularly,

10:25 regular oil changes and those kinds of things.

10:28 And I think that helps to make the vehicles more reliable.

10:31 But reliable works well and does not break down often.

10:36 Dependable, can be trusted to work consistently over time.

10:41 So you might be wondering what's the difference between dependable and reliable?

10:45 They're pretty much the same thing.

10:48 When you say a car is dependable,

10:50 it means it works when you turn the key, the time.

10:54 If you say, you know, public transit is very dependable here in the city,

10:59 it means that when you go to get on the bus, the bus comes on time.

11:03 When you go to take the train, the train comes on time and leaves on time.

11:07 It's very dependable, it's very trust, reliable.

11:10 So can be trusted to work consistently over time.

11:15 High speed, able to travel very quickly.

11:19 If you're wondering where the idea for this lesson came,

11:22 we are supposed to be building a high speed train in Ontario,

11:26 Canada that's going to run from I think Montreal

11:30 to Ottawa to start and then it will expand.

11:34 I really hope this does happen.

11:36 I'm always jealous of France and Japan and Spain

11:40 and all these countries that have high speed trains.

11:44 So we do have a train system.

11:47 Jen and I can take the train from where we close to where we live to Toronto.

11:52 But the train only goes about 70 or 80 kilometers per hour.

11:57 A high speed train goes 150 to 300 kilometers per hour.

12:01 Like a high speed train is very, very fast.

12:04 And so I am really looking forward to that.

12:07 It will be in 10 years.

12:09 I think it takes a while to build these things but high speed,

12:13 able to travel very quickly, affordable,

12:17 does not cost a lot of money to buy or use.

12:21 I can't quite remember what kind of car this is.

12:24 I think it's a Nissan Versa.

12:26 I think that's the name.

12:27 I'm not a car expert, but this is an affordable car.

12:31 It's somewhat small.

12:34 It's probably really fuel efficient because it has a small engine.

12:38 This is not a luxury vehicle.

12:40 This does not cost a lot of money to buy or use.

12:44 So notice there's two parts to this.

12:46 You know, if you're going to buy an affordable vehicle,

12:49 it will be cheap to buy it,

12:51 but it will also be cheap in that sense that it won't use a lot of gas.

12:57 So affordable does not cost a lot of money to buy or use.

13:02 Outdated.

13:04 Looks old and uses older technology.

13:07 Now I would not say this is useless, but I think it is outdated.

13:14 We don't have these old style streetcars anymore.

13:19 Usually they're bigger and longer and they're more sleek,

13:22 like they're a little more aerodynamic.

13:25 But when something is outdated it looks old and uses older technology.

13:30 I would say this is probably 50 to 100 years old and it's a little bit outdated.

13:36 But if you were somewhere as a tourist,

13:39 this would be a fun way to travel in a trolley car or streetcar.

13:44 There's a variety of names.

13:46 Outdated.

13:47 Looks old and uses older technology.

13:51 Safe.

13:52 Protects passengers and reduces risk of harm.

13:56 So I don't know if there's truth to this, but we

13:59 have been told that Volvo makes extremely safe vehicles.

14:04 When I was younger there was a, veterinarian who visited our farm who

14:09 drove a Volvo and he talked at length about how safe a, Volvo was,

14:15 that it was one of the safest vehicles.

14:17 So it's designed to keep passengers safe.

14:21 Of course it'll have all of the normal things like seat belts and airbags,

14:25 but it might also have more advanced features.

14:29 Even the design of the vehicle might just be better in this, in the sense

14:36 that if you got in an accident you would be better protected.

14:40 So safe protects passengers and reduces risk of harm.

14:46 Expensive.

14:47 So here we have something that costs a lot of money.

14:51 This is a vehicle that I would never buy, although I do like the color orange.

14:57 That is a pretty nice looking car.

14:59 But it is expensive.

15:01 It costs a lot of money.

15:03 Let me put it this way.

15:05 If I sold everything I own, I don't think I could buy this car.

15:11 Maybe.

15:12 No, I don't think I could.

15:13 If I sold the farm.

15:15 The problem is I have debt.

15:18 So if I sold everything I owned, I still would have to pay off my debt.

15:23 Like I have a Loan from the bank that I used to buy the farm,

15:28 which is called a mortgage.

15:30 So this is not going to happen.

15:32 I might buy an orange minivan someday.

15:35 We'll see.

15:35 But there, you go.

15:37 Expensive.

15:38 Costs a lot of money.

15:42 Cheap.

15:43 This is not my vehicle, but I do own one exactly like this.

15:48 Cheap.

15:49 Costs very little money.

15:51 So my Chev Uplander, Chevrolet, Chevy Uplander.

15:56 By the way, there's a car company called Chevrolet,

15:59 and we sometimes just call it a Chev or a Chevy.

16:03 I bought this a month after I had heart surgery for very little money.

16:09 I think it was only $5,000 to buy this van,

16:13 which might sound like a lot, but in Canada, that's pretty cheap.

16:17 And I think it only had 60,000 km on it, or 80,000 km.

16:23 I still consider this one of the best vehicles I ever bought.

16:27 It was very reliable.

16:29 Still is.

16:31 And it was cheap.

16:32 So it costs very little money.

16:34 So very affordable, very cheap.

16:38 One of my favorite vehicles.

16:39 Kind of roomy, little, like,

16:40 not super spacious inside, but definitely not too bad.

16:44 But cheap.

16:45 Costs very little money.

16:48 Brand new.

16:49 So I have never bought a brand new vehicle.

16:53 So brand new means has not had a previous owner new.

16:57 So the difference between new and brand new, it means the same thing,

17:02 but I think when we want to emphasize,

17:05 we want to make it sound really cool, we would say brand new.

17:09 I bought a brand new computer.

17:11 I bought a brand new car.

17:12 I bought a brand new 2026 minivan.

17:16 So again, brand new has not had a previous owner new.

17:20 So they built this van at the car factory.

17:24 And then if I was to buy it, it would be brand new.

17:28 So yeah, I've never bought a brand new vehicle.

17:32 I know a friend of mine buys brand new vehicles all the time,

17:36 but I think he makes a lot more money than me.

17:39 I usually buy used vehicles.

17:42 So a used vehicle has been owned before by someone.

17:46 So you can see the sign says used cars and trucks.

17:51 So if I had lots of money, I would buy a brand new minivan.

17:55 But because I don't,

17:57 because I'm just a normal person with a normal life, I usually buy used.

18:02 So I go to the local car lot and I

18:05 look at all of the used vehicles that are there,

18:08 and I pick out something that I think Jen and I will like and we test drive it.

18:13 So usually I will drive the vehicle home,

18:16 and then Jen will get in and we'll drive it around,

18:19 and then I will drop Jen back off at the farm

18:21 and bring it back to the used car dealer.

18:24 And then I Will decide if we want to buy it.

18:26 So used has been owned before by someone.

18:31 High performance, built for speed, power and good handling.

18:36 So when you have a high performance car, it's probably not fuel efficient,

18:41 but it's probably a lot of fun to drive.

18:44 So I think this is a Corvette.

18:47 It's an American sports car, and it is a high performance car.

18:51 The engine produces a lot of horsepower.

18:54 The engine has a lot of power.

18:56 The car is built to go fast.

18:58 It's built for speed.

19:00 And when they say good handling,

19:01 they mean if you turn quickly while going really fast,

19:05 it doesn't start sliding, it holds or grips the road.

19:10 So high performance, built for speed, power and good handling.

19:15 That is a nice looking car.

19:16 By the way, Most high performance cars also look really, really cool.

19:21 Heavy duty.

19:23 Do you like the way I said that?

19:24 Heavy duty made for tough work conditions.

19:27 So this is a large Ford pickup truck pulling a big load of round bales of hay.

19:35 This is a heavy duty pickup truck.

19:37 This is not a normal pickup truck.

19:40 Let me make it bigger again.

19:41 You can see how it has what we call dualies on the back.

19:46 That means there's two tires beside each other.

19:49 It's also just called duals.

19:50 But this truck is a heavy duty truck made for tough work conditions.

19:56 It probably has also a lot of horsepower.

19:59 The engine produces a lot of power,

20:02 but not so the truck can go fast like a sports car instead.

20:06 So the truck can do work, it can pull a trailer.

20:10 It can do things that this car would never be able to do.

20:14 So heavy duty made for tough work and work conditions.

20:19 You can probably put a lot in the back of this truck as well.

20:23 It would probably do a good job.

20:26 Compact, small in size and easy to park or drive.

20:30 So this is a small, little compact car.

20:34 A compact car usually only has two doors.

20:37 It might only be made for two people.

20:39 But I'm pretty sure it's a little bit cramped inside.

20:43 I think if you were taller, like if you were 6ft tall or taller,

20:48 I don't know what that is in centimeters.

20:50 Sorry.

20:51 You probably would find this car a little cramped.

20:54 But compact, small in size and easy to park or drive.

21:00 Classic.

21:01 So in North America, in Canada and in the United States,

21:05 if you say classic car, you usually mean a car from the 60s or 70s.

21:10 This is a Ford Mustang, probably from the late 60s, maybe early 70s.

21:16 An older vehicle valued for its style and history.

21:20 You might also call this a muscle car.

21:23 So this is a muscle, right, your bicep.

21:25 We in North America sometimes call these muscle cars.

21:30 Because they are very, very strong and powerful as well.

21:33 But if you had a car from 1968, if you had a 1968 Ford Mustang,

21:39 it would be considered, a classic car,

21:41 an older vehicle valued for its style and history.

21:45 By the way, fun fact, My uncle, actually, two of my uncles,

21:50 when they were like, 19 or 20, had Ford Mustangs.

21:55 That must have been really, really cool back then.

21:59 Autonomous can drive itself without a human driver.

22:02 So these are becoming more and more common.

22:05 I have not seen an autonomous vehicle yet.

22:08 Let me say that one more time.

22:09 Autonomous.

22:10 It's a new word for me as well.

22:13 I knew this word, but it wasn't used regularly until one or two

22:18 years ago when they started to have news articles about autonomous vehicles.

22:24 So an autonomous vehicle can drive itself without a human driver.

22:28 You'll see that it has lots of sensors and cameras on it

22:33 so that it can see the world around it so that you can.

22:37 It can see, people and the road and obstacles, and then it can drive itself.

22:45 So autonomous can drive itself without a human driver.

22:50 Daily driver.

22:51 So this is an informal term,

22:54 that we use in English for a vehicle used for everyday travel.

22:59 So if someone says to you, oh, you drive to work.

23:01 What's your daily driver?

23:02 I would say, well, mine is a 2015 Ford Escape.

23:06 This is my daily driver.

23:08 This is the car that I drive to work every day.

23:12 Sometimes people have used this term to talk about other things.

23:15 They might say, oh, what phone is your daily driver?

23:18 And I would say, well, mine is a Google Pixel phone.

23:21 You can see the Google Pixel here.

23:23 Someone else might say, oh, for a phone, my daily driver is an iPhone.

23:27 So daily driver.

23:29 Normally you're talking about a vehicle used for everyday travel.

23:35 Rickety, weak and unstable, or unlikely to.

23:39 Or likely to break.

23:40 Sorry, rickety.

23:42 That's a fun word to say.

23:43 This vehicle certainly looks rickety.

23:46 It looks weak.

23:47 It looks unstable and likely to break.

23:50 It's definitely banged up.

23:53 Like, it has dents in it.

23:54 It looks like, like parts of it might fall off.

23:58 If I ordered an Uber and the driver showed up in this rickety vehicle,

24:03 I would be a little bit concerned about

24:05 whether it would get me to my destination.

24:09 So, rickety, weak and unstable or likely to break.

24:15 Economical, inexpensive to run and maintain.

24:19 So an affordable car from earlier would be an economical car.

24:23 So a, cheap car might not be economical.

24:27 A cheap car might be rickety and it might break,

24:30 but an economical car would be inexpensive to run and maintain.

24:34 If you had this car, this is a little Toyota again, isn't it.

24:39 My guess is it's very economical.

24:41 It probably doesn't need to be fixed a lot.

24:44 It's probably well built.

24:46 More importantly, it probably doesn't use very much gas when you are driving it.

24:51 So economical.

24:53 Another fun word to say.

24:54 Rickety.

24:55 Economical.

24:56 Inexpensive to run and maintain.

25:00 Versatile.

25:01 Can be used for many different purposes.

25:04 So one of the reasons why I like owning a minivan is it's very versatile.

25:11 If you put all the seats down in a minivan,

25:14 you can put an entire sheet of what we call plywood in the back.

25:20 So this is a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood.

25:22 You're learning a little bit about wood as well.

25:25 It's 4ft wide and 8ft long.

25:27 That is a standard size for a piece of plywood in Ontario,

25:32 Canada, and in North America.

25:34 And it fits in the back of most minivans if you have all the seats down.

25:39 So a minivan is very, very versatile.

25:42 Can be used for many different purposes.

25:44 A pickup truck is also very versatile.

25:48 I could use a pickup truck as my daily driver.

25:50 I could have a pickup truck and drive it to work.

25:53 I could use it to commute to work and back.

25:56 But I could also use it to help my cousin move on the weekend.

26:00 It's very, very versatile.

26:02 So versatile can be used for many different purposes.

26:07 Sam.