Hello, English learners.
Welcome back to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
And my name is Katherine.
And today we're talking about being on the road.
Yeah, we're going to be on the road, but we're going to encounter a little bit of car problems.
Oh, my favorite kind.
Oh, yeah.
I think it's happened to everyone.
You're on the road or maybe you're coming back from work.
You get a flat tire or something happens to your car, right?
And it's always when you're in a rush.
And most of the time it's raining.
Yeah, or snowing.
So all of the circumstances definitely, well, they don't help, let's just say.
All right.
So before we listen to this dialogue, let's take a look at some of the words in today's vocabulary preview.
Vocabulary preview.
All right, so we're going to take a look at two words.
They're kind of strange, I don't know, kind of difficult to understand.
So that's what we're going to explain them.
The first one is spew, to spew.
It's a verb, okay, to spew.
Well, what can spew?
A volcano can spew.
Exactly.
An engine can spew.
A person can spew.
Yeah, that's not very nice.
No.
So basically it's to like expel or to...
Shoot out.
Shoot out from your mouth or something.
Liquid.
So, in the case of a person, right?
So if a person spews, it means a person throws up, but it's usually very forceful or it's very messy.
A volcano can spew lava.
Exactly.
So, a volcano is spewing lava.
Now, for the next word that we have, it's an informal way of saying that something is broken.
We can say, it's busted.
It's busted.
My DVD player is busted.
Man, my phone is busted.
So it's an informal way, very popular, very common, I would say to describe that something is not working.
I don't think many people actually say, well, it's broken or it's damaged.
Yeah, they're pretty much mixed, I think, but you will definitely hear busted if you're talking to native English speakers.
Or even, like, for example, your arm.
Oh, he's got a busted arm.
Exactly.
So busted.
All right.
So let's listen to our dialogue for the first time.
Let's see what's going on with this car trouble.
And then we'll come back and explain some things.
Howdy.
Nice car.
What seems to be the problem?
I don't know.
This stupid old car started being white smoke and it just died on me.
Luckily, I managed to start it up and drive it here.
What do you think it is?
Not sure yet.
How about you pop the hood and we can take a look?
Mmm, doesn't look good.
What do you mean?
My daddy gave me this car for my birthday last month.
It's brand new.
Well, Missy, the white smoke that you saw is steam from the radiator.
You overheated your engine, so now the pistons are busted, and so is your transmission.
You should have called us, and we could have towed you over here when your car died.
Ugh.
So, how long is this gonna take?
An hour?
I'm afraid a bit more than that.
We need to order the spare parts, take apart your electrical system, fuel pump and engine and then put it back together again.
You are going to have to leave it here for at least two weeks.
What?
How am I supposed to go to school?
Or go shopping?
This is not happening.
So if I were the mechanic, I would not be very happy to be dealing with someone like this girl.
I think it's well.
Maybe it's a little bit stereotypical that we put it as a girl, because guys and girls so many people don't know anything about cars or mechanics.
And in the States, there's a lot of female mechanics too.
So it's, you know, it's mixed.
Yeah, yeah.
But definitely it's something that happens all the time and probably the mechanic will overcharge her as well because apparently she doesn't know what she's doing.
And that's one of the reasons we want to give you the vocabulary to deal with these situations.
So let's look at some of those car words in today's Language Takeaway.
Language Takeaway.
All right, so we're going to take a look at very specific words related to cars and the engines and everything.
So let's start with the first one.
Radiator.
Radiator.
All right, so the radiator of the car.
So a radiator is something that you normally find in the front of the car near the engine.
It usually gets very, very hot, right?
Yeah.
So one of the big issues is radiators getting too hot because there's no way to cool them down.
So if you live in a place that's very hot, the radiator keeps your engine cool because it has water in it.
So if it overheats or maybe you didn't put enough water in there then it'll start spewing steam like in this dialogue.
And if you have a problem with your radiator, you could actually do a lot of damage to your engine, which is why this is important.
Exactly.
And that's what happened in this dialogue.
So, a radiator.
Now, because the radiator wasn't working well.
It overheated the engine and he said they had some busted pistons.
So, broken pistons.
Pistons are important because they're kind of like valves that go up and down.
Right.
So inside your engine you have many explosions and the pistons move up and down, and that's what actually moves your car.
Right.
And so pistons in general are things in mechanics.
So like a trumpet has pistons, things that go up and down and that allow for the flow of air, or something like that.
Very good.
So that's a piston.
And well, another very common mechanic term is the transmission.
All right, so the transmission, what happens if your transmission dies?
Can you still drive?
You basically can't move, or maybe you only have one gear or two gears.
All right, so think about transmission as coming from the word to transmit.
That means to transfer.
So this is the part of the car that transfers energy or the power to actually move the car.
So the transmission.
And we've got the mechanic who says, well, we've got to order you some spare parts.
So first let's look at the word spare.
What's another word for spare?
Additional, maybe extra.
Right, so spare means extra.
Parts are, well, pieces.
So he's talking about ordering a new transmission, new pistons, things to replace the broken things.
Spare parts.
So this is where you go to the mechanic to get some spare parts and get them installed.
You probably don't have many spare parts at home, right?
You got a transmission lying around.
Well, yeah, so spare parts.
And the last one that we're going to take a look at is a fuel pump.
Okay, so a pump is, you could have a bike pump.
A water pump.
A water pump.
So these are something that we use very, very often.
But a fuel pump is something that allows gas, gasoline, to get into your engine.
So it's basically a device that pushes gasoline into the engine so you can start.
And that's the same thing with a water pump.
It's a device that pushes water.
Or an air pump is something that pushes air into your tires and your bicycle.
Exactly.
So a fuel pump, water pump, etc., Wow, I feel like we know a lot about cars.
Apparently we do, see?
All right.
So now that we've taken a look at all of these great words, let's move on to a couple of phrases in Fluency Builder.
Fluency Builder.
All right, these are phrases that you hear sometimes when you're talking about electronics, but in today's lesson we're also talking about specific car phrases, so you're going to hear these all the time at the mechanics.
Right, and the first one is, the car suddenly died on me.
All right, to die on.
So we keep these two words together, die on.
Oh, man.
So while you were driving, your car died.
It stopped moving.
So that means that it doesn't work anymore.
And it's not only for cars, right?
You can say my MP3 player died on me today.
Exactly.
And what it means is it's not like you left it and you forgot about it and you tried it again and it didn't work.
It means while you're using it, it dies.
It doesn't work.
So I think this phrase is a good one to give some other examples.
So let's listen.
Example one.
My CD player died on me and I had to listen to the radio.
Example two.
Get that medicine over here fast or this guy's gonna die on me.
Example 3.
I forgot to charge my mobile phone.
It's gonna die on me soon.
And so this next one is a phrase you hear, the first thing.
You hear maybe when you tell someone you have a car problem.
Right.
You tell them to pop the hood.
Or let's pop the hood.
So this means let's open the front part of the car, the hood, to look at the engine transmission, all those parts.
Exactly.
So you can say open the hood, but the most common one is pop the hood.
So the reason is because there's a little spring and you have to pull inside the car and it goes pop, pop.
And there's a little jump, the hood jump.
So it's literally popping.
Right.
Or you can also say the trunk, right?
The back part of the car.
Hey, can you pop the trunk for me?
I've got to put some stuff inside.
Exactly.
So pop the hood, pop the trunk.
And next we've got this girl actually who's talking about her car because she just got this car.
So what's another way to say it's a new car?
It's brand new.
Is that more new than new?
It's like newer, newer than new.
All right, so brand, you think about brands like Ford or Gucci.
These are brands.
But brand new means she maybe got it like today.
So it's brand new.
It's very, very new.
Did you see my brand new watch?
Oh, it is nice.
Did you get it?
All right, so brand new.
And well, the last phrase that we have for you today is to take apart something.
All right, so this is very popular with young children.
They like to take things apart so they can find out how they work.
But to take apart means to take all the pieces and to pull them out.
Yeah, I used to do that a lot when I was a kid.
I used to take apart any electronic device to kind of see how it works, and then I would try to put it back together again.
That's why you're so smart.
Well, it never really worked.
It worked half the time.
So the problem is always putting them back together again, right?
Exactly.
So you can take it apart, but then you put it back together and there's always a screw missing or a screw that's extra, or two or three parts.
Not a good sign.
All right.
So we've taken a look at a lot of great words and phrases.
So let's listen to this dialogue for the last time.
Howdy.
Nice car.
What seems to be the problem?
I don't know.
The stupid old car started being white smoke and it just died on me.
Luckily, I managed to start it up and drive it here.
What do you think it is?
Not sure yet.
How about you pop the hood and we can take a look?
Mmm, doesn't look good.
What do you mean?
My daddy gave me this car for my birthday last month.
It's brand new.
Well, missy, the white smoke that you saw is steam from the radiator.
You overheated your engine, so now the pistons are busted, and so is your transmission.
You should have called us and we could have told you over here when your car died.
Ugh, so how long is this going to take?
An hour?
I'm afraid a bit more than that.
We need to order the spare parts, take apart your electrical system, fuel pump and engine and then put it back together again.
You're going to have to leave it here for at least two weeks.
What?
How am I supposed to go to school?
Or go shopping?
This is not happening.
All right.
So car trouble.
Have you ever had like any very serious car trouble or like something weird happened to your car?
Actually, the week before I decided to leave Chicago, I had this 1991 Honda Civic hatchback.
So only two doors, nice.
And i was driving home from work, i was on the highway, had the radio on the windows open and then it died.
It died in the middle of the highway during rush hour, right?
So that's when there's tons of cars and i didn't know what to do.
So i'm calling people and then all of a sudden i see someone tapping on my window and there's cars everywhere and it's this guy and uh, and he's like listen, Do you need a hand?
I said, yes.
So I put the car in neutral so that there's no break.
And he pushed it to a side road and gave me a ride home.
No way.
He was the coolest guy.
He was so nice.
And he was just there with his truck.
He's a gardener and just gave me a ride home.
It was super, super cool.
Wow.
And so it turns out my engine died.
No, the engine was new.
It was the transmission.
It was shot.
It was totally broken.
Wow.
But I was very lucky to have such a kind person.
Yeah, that's a good story, because usually people are too afraid or maybe a little bit reluctant to stop and see if you're okay or if you need a ride or something, because you know you can't really trust people these days.
But it's good.
Once I saw somebody on the side of the road.
It had a flat tire.
It was two girls and they didn't know what to do.
So I was like passing by.
It was actually raining.
And I was like, hey, do you guys need a hand in there?
They're like, yeah, please, we can't locate my dad or whatever.
So I was like, changing the tire, it's not a big deal, right?
And they wanted to tip me, they wanted to give me some money.
They're like, oh, please take this, you're so kind, your time, and you're all wet.
And I'm like, no, no, don't worry about it.
No, it's just a nice thing to do.
If you know anything about cars, I mean, or if you can offer someone a lift.
I know it's not terribly safe to ride with strangers, but this guy totally helped me out.
Nice.
All right.
Well, maybe you guys have some cool or maybe some interesting stories of what's happened with your cars, or maybe you've helped somebody out.
So, come to our website at EnglishPod.com and let us know.
And, of course, if you have any questions about the vocabulary or phrases that you heard today, please ask away.
Don't hesitate.
And, well, again, we hope to see you on the website.
All right.
We'll see you guys there.
Bye.
Bye.
