US culture: learn about cars & driving!  

What’s it like to drive in your country?

What type of cars do people generally use?

What’s the speed limit? Every country has it’s driving differences. And that’s true for America too!

In this short video lesson on US culture, you’ll learn about cars and driving in America.

You’ll also learn some useful words for talking about this topic. After watching the video, try our little quiz below to see how much you can remember. Happy learning!

Level: Pre-Intermediate to Upper Intermediate (A2-B2)

Video: YES!

Vocabulary

Here are some useful words that appear in the video.

To take forever

If something “takes forever”, it takes a very long time: “The journey home from the party took forever.”

A place

We can use this word to refer to a house, area, building, town, city…: “I stayed at Pete’s place last night.”

To get from place to place

If you use a car to “get from place to place”, you use a car travel from one location to another one: “I use my bike to get from place to place.”

To get back home

If you “get back home”, you arrive home: “What time did you get back home last night?”

A pain

If something is “a pain”, it’s bad, annoying, terrible, irritating…:
A: We have an exam tomorrow.

B: I know! What a pain!

A schedule

A “schedule” is a list of planned activities showing the times or dates when they will happen: “The schedule for the trip is on the website.”

To sneak up on you

If something “sneaks up on you”, it moves closer and closer to you without you realizing or expecting it, and then it can cause you problems: “Be careful! If you don’t watch the time carefully, it can sneak up on you and then you’re in trouble!”

Video quiz  

You’re going to watch a video with someone talking about driving in the US. Watch it once and answer the questions below. Remember, the first time, you should watch the video from start to finish without stopping and try to understand as much as possible. After that, watch it again, but this time you can pause or stop it wherever you like. [answers below]

1 How long does the speaker say it would take him to get home from where he is now?

2 Why does he say it’s hard or a pain to visit certain places?

3 What form of transport does he recommend for a trip down to Florida and then up to New York City?

Speaking

Now talk about this topic with a friend or classmate. Make notes and try to use as much of the new language as you can.

Video script

US culture – learn about driving!

It’s big

It is really important because the US is quite large and takes forever to get from place to place. For example, to get back home from where I am now, it would take me about two to three days… that’s twenty hours driving.

Getting to places!

It makes it a lot harder to get to places, so it’s not really easy for me to just go home, I have to fly because it’s a pain, or it’s hard to go visit other places since it’s just so far.

Cars, planes, trains!

…that it’s easy to get around place to place without a car, or that a car is the only way to get around, because a lot of times it might be better to fly or do something else, because there’s just a lot of different options, but at the same time not as many as in Europe.

Tips on traveling in the US!

Er, make sure to plan and have enough time in your schedule so you really know how far away things are from each other, because it can sneak up on you if you don’t realize how far things are apart because the country is really big.

Example

Say for example you want to make a trip down to Disney World in Florida and then find your way up to New York City, it’s really hard to do that just with driving. It would be a really long trip, so flying is honestly your best option.

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Answers

Video quiz

1 How long does the speaker say it would take him to get home from where he is now? He says it would take him about two to three days

2 Why does he say it’s hard or a pain to visit certain places? He says it’s hard or a pain to visit certain places because they’re far from each other and the country is so big.

3 What form of transport does he recommend for a trip down to Florida and then up to New York City? He recommends going by plane.