Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 609, Types of Cars and Vehicles.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 609.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to our website at eslpodcom and download a learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Types of Cars and Vehicles.
It's a dialogue between Robert and Mary where we're going to hear a lot of vocabulary related to types or kinds of cars.
Let's get started.
Hi, I'm Robert.
What are you in the market for today?
I want to buy a new car but I'm not sure what I want.
Well, you've come to the right place.
We have a very large selection of cars and trucks.
Just about any type of vehicle you can think of.
Why don't I show you around?
Okay, that would be great.
Over here, we have some nice compacts and midsize cars.
We have two-door or four-door sedans, coupes, and hatchbacks.
We even have this beautiful convertible sports car.
What do you think?
It's very nice, but I want something a little bigger for my family.
Okay, no sweat.
Walk this way and you'll see our station wagons, minivans, and SUVs.
These seat anywhere from six to ten people.
We even have pickups.
I'm not sure if any of these will fit my family.
How many children do you have?
Eleven.
Eleven?
In that case, you might want to buy two.
The scene of this dialogue is a car dealership, a place where they sell new cars.
The salesperson is named Robert, and Robert begins our dialogue by saying, Hi, I'm Robert.
What are you in the market for today?
To be in the market for something means to be shopping for something, to be considering a certain kind of something that is available for sale.
You're deciding which one you're going to buy.
You might say, I'm in the market for a new phone.
I really need a new phone.
I wish the listeners of ESL Podcast would give me an iPhone and an iPad.
That's what I'm in the market for.
I'm going to buy them.
Of Mary is in the market for buying a new car, or simply in the market for a new car.
She says, Robert says, Well, you've come to the right place.
You are in the right place.
We have a very large selection of cars and trucks, just about any type of vehicle you can think of.
A truck is a large vehicle used to carry things, not just carry people.
Usually there is an open area in the back of the vehicle to put large objects in.
The expression just about means almost or approximately.
What time is it?
It's just about noon.
Or you could say, we have just about every kind of dessert here.
Cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream, candy, and so forth.
So just about is almost or approximately.
But there are some other meanings that you can find in our learning guide for these words.
Robert says they have just about any type of vehicle you can think of.
Vehicle, V-E-H-I-C-L-E
Is any large machine with an engine that is used to carry people or things from one place to another.
It could be a car.
It could be a truck.
It could be a motorcycle.
Anything that has a motor, an engine, that is used to move people from one place to another.
Robert says, why don't I show you around?
Why don't here means I think it is a good idea.
To show someone around is a phrasal verb meaning to give you a tour of an area or to show you what, in this case, the store has for sale.
Mary says, okay, that would be great, meaning yes.
Robert says, over here we have some nice compacts and mid-size cars.
A compact car is a very small car, one of the smallest you can find.
A mid-size M-I-D hyphen S-I-Z-E car is a medium-sized car.
Not too small, not too big.
Somewhere in the middle.
Robert says we have two-door or four-door sedans. coops, and hatchbacks.
These are three kinds of cars.
A sedan S-E-D-A-N is usually a car with four doors, two in front, two in back.
That has room for at least four people.
A coupe C-O-U-P-E is a small car with only two doors and is usually what we would call a sports car.
It's a car that goes fast, that looks nice, that will allow you to attract a lot of beautiful women.
Well, certain kinds of women.
A hatchback, H-A-T-C-H-B-A-C-K, one word, is a car that has either two or four doors, but in the back it has a very large door that opens up, and usually you can put large items in the back of this kind of car.
Often the seats in the back will go down, will fold down, so you have more room.
I have a hatchback car.
There are four doors, and then there is a fifth door, a large door.
That is where you would normally find the trunk of the car, the back storage part of the car.
And that is used just like a trunk, but it's much bigger than a trunk.
So we have sedans, coupes, and hatchbacks.
Robert says, we even have this beautiful convertible sports car.
A convertible car is one where the roof the top of the car folds down or can be removed so that you don't have anything above you.
There's no roof.
A sports car, as I mentioned earlier, is often a small car, usually expensive, that can go very fast.
So you can attract the attention of police officers.
Robert shows all these cars to Mary and says, What do you think?
What do you think of these cars?
Mary says, It's very nice, but I want something bigger for my family.
Robert says, Okay, no sweat.
No sweat, S-W-E-A-T says, means no problem.
It's an informal phrase we use to let someone else know that what they are concerned about, or what they are worried about is not a problem.
You have a solution for your problem.
No sweat, he says.
Walk this way, come with me, and you'll see our station wagons and minivans, and SUVs.
A station wagon is a large car that has a lot of storage space in the back.
It's long more than it is tall.
So it is a long car, usually four doors, and But there's also a hatchback-like door in the back.
But there's a lot more space.
These were very popular in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s.
They've become less popular now because there are some other kinds of large vehicles that are used, such as minivans and SUVs, which we'll explain in a moment.
But station wagons were very popular.
My father always drove a station wagon until he was at least in his 70s.
Part of the reason was that he had a big family, and so he needed all of that room.
In fact, I bought his old station wagon and drove it when I was in graduate school.
That really attracted the beautiful women.
Minivans are large vehicles that have a lot of room for passengers, for people.
Typically, they'll have seven or eight seats.
It's long, but much taller than a station wagon.
A SUV is a sports utility vehicle.
This is a large car, both tall and long, and very heavy.
It was originally designed to travel on uneven surfaces, places like the desert or in the country where there are no roads.
But in fact most people who own these SUVs don't use them anywhere outside of the regular roads and highways.
They're very popular here in Los Angeles and in many other cities.
They are definitely not the cheapest cars you can buy.
Getting back to the dialogue, Robert says these seat anywhere from six to ten people.
The expression to seat, S-E-A-T, as a verb, means it has enough seats for that many people.
So, for example, a stadium a baseball stadium that has 55000 seats would be described as a stadium that seats 55000.
Robert says that these station wagons, minivans, and SUVs seat anywhere from 6 to 10 people.
The expression anywhere from one number to another, anywhere from 5 to 50, is simply used to express a range of something, to give the minimum and the maximum.
Anywhere from X to Y. Robert also says that they have pickups.
P-I-C-K-U-P-S, one word.
A pickup, or sometimes it's called a pickup truck, is a small truck with a large open area in the back that has low sides.
It's very similar to other kinds of trucks, except the pickup truck almost always doesn't have a cover on the back part where you put large objects, the flat part in the back of the vehicle.
Mary says I'm not sure if any of these will fit my family, meaning will be good enough or big enough.
Robert says, how many children do you have?
Mary says, eleven.
Robert says, eleven?
In that case, in that situation, you might want to buy two.
Two cars or two trucks or two station wagons.
Of course, some of you know I am the youngest of 11 children, so perhaps this dialogue was written for me.
After all, my mother's name is Mary.
Now let's listen to the dialogue at a normal speed.
Hi, I'm Robert.
What are you in the market for today?
I want to buy a new car, but I'm not sure what I want.
Well, you've come to the right place.
We have a very large selection of cars and trucks, just about any type of vehicle you can think of.
Why don't I show you around?
Okay, that would be great.
Over here, we have some nice compacts and midsize cars.
We have two-door or four-door sedans, coupes, and hatchbacks.
We even have this beautiful convertible sports car.
What do you think?
It's very nice, but I want something a little bigger for my family.
Okay, no sweat.
Walk this way and you'll see our station wagons, minivans, and SUVs.
These seat anywhere from six to ten people.
We even have pickups.
I'm not sure if any of these will fit my family.
How many children do you have?
Eleven.
Eleven?
In that case, you might want to buy two.
She can write scripts on just about any topic.
That's our own Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Say.
Hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
