Learn to talk about directions
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| INTRODUCTION | |
| Sadia: Hello there from New York. This is Sadia. | |
| Keith: And I’m Keith. Welcome to Gengo English Lesson 12 - “Get Insider Information from the Locals” | |
| Sadia: In the last lesson, Lesson 11, you learned how to talk | |
| about the weather. | |
| Keith: And you also learned about the conjunction, "but," the | |
| future tense, and adjectives with nouns. | |
| Sadia: In this lesson you’ll learn how to commute using a | |
| taxi and how to engage in small talk. | |
| Keith: This conversation takes place in a taxicab. | |
| Sadia: The conversation is between our main character, Zo, | |
| and the taxi driver. | |
| Keith: Alright, well let’s listen in to the conversation. | |
| DIALOGUE | |
| Taxi driver: Good morning. Where to? | |
| Zo: Good morning. To the Altman Building, please. | |
| Taxi driver: What's the address? | |
| Zo: Here it is. | |
| Driver: Where are you from? | |
| Zo: Oh—I’m from Cape Town— South Africa. | |
| Driver: Oh yeah? Are you visiting? | |
| Zo: Yep. | |
| Taxi driver: You speak English well! | |
| Zo: No, not really. Just a little! | |
| Taxi driver: No—you're pretty good! | |
| Zo: No, not yet. Where are you from? Your English | |
| is pretty good, too! | |
| Taxi: Yeah, well, I’ve been here for 15 years now, | |
| so, you know. The Altman Building? There’s a very | |
| good restaurant near there. | |
| Zo: What's the name? | |
| Taxi driver: Afroasia. | |
| Zo: Can you write it down? | |
| Taxi driver: Sure. Hold on a minute. | |
| Taxi driver: We're here. That’ll be $8.50. | |
| Zo: Here you are. Thank you. | |
| Taxi driver: Thank you! Here’s your change. | |
| Zo: Receipt, please. | |
| Taxi driver: Sure—here you are. | |
| Keith: One more time, slowly. | |
| Taxi driver: Good morning. Where to? | |
| Zo: Good morning. To the Altman Building, please. | |
| Taxi driver: What's the address? | |
| Zo: Here it is. | |
| Driver: Where are you from? | |
| Zo: Oh—I’m from Cape Town— South Africa. | |
| Driver: Oh yeah? Are you visiting? | |
| Zo: Yep. | |
| Taxi driver: You speak English well! | |
| Zo: No, not really. Just a little! | |
| Taxi driver: No—you're pretty good! | |
| Zo: No, not yet. Where are you from? Your English | |
| is pretty good, too! | |
| Taxi: Yeah, well, I’ve been here for 15 years now, | |
| so, you know. The Altman Building? There’s a very | |
| good restaurant near there. | |
| Zo: What's the name? | |
| Taxi driver: Afroasia. | |
| Zo: Can you write it down? | |
| Taxi driver: Sure. Hold on a minute. | |
| Taxi driver: We're here. That’ll be $8.50. | |
| Zo: Here you are. Thank you. | |
| Taxi driver: Thank you! Here’s your change. | |
| Zo: Receipt, please. | |
| Taxi driver: Sure—here you are. | |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER | |
| Sadia: So, Keith, would you agree that one of the most recognized icons of | |
| New York is the yellow taxicab? | |
| Keith: Oh, yes, definitely. Absolutely. I grew up here, but when I think of New York, I always think of yellow taxis. | |
| Sadia: Wow, so it’s legit then. | |
| Keith: Definitely. | |
| Sadia: I have some really cool facts about taxis that I read recently. | |
| Keith: Ooh, please, uh, teach us. | |
| Sadia: OK, so it turns out that taxis, these yellow taxis, are called "medallion taxis." Medallion because they’re named after the licenses that taxi drivers have to have. | |
| Keith: Oh, that’s right, on the hoods of the cars, or the taxis, you’ll see a flat piece of metal, that’s called a medallion. | |
| Sadia: Actually I never noticed medallions on taxis. | |
| Keith: Well, if you take a look, you’ll see it on the hood of the car. | |
| Sadia: Yeah, I’m going to look as soon as we go outside. Also, I learned that yellow cabs are the only vehicles that are allowed to pick up passengers in response to being hailed on the street. | |
| Keith: So what does that mean? To be “hailed” on the street. | |
| Sadia: Like, to flag down, to hail a cab is kind of to raise your arm up and show them that.. | |
| Keith: Hey, taxi, | |
| Sadia: Right, Right. | |
| Keith: I need a taxi. | |
| Sadia: Exactly. | |
| Keith: OK, well I got another fact for you. | |
| Sadia: OK. | |
| Keith: The first New York cab company was | |
| The New York Taxicab Company. And that was first launched in 1907. | |
| Sadia: Wow. Who knew? 1907. That’s a long time ago. | |
| Keith: So more than a hundred years, yeah. | |
| Sadia: Yeah, insane. These days it seems like cabs are kind of changing a little bit because a lot of new technology is being used by taxicabs. Because there are like hybrid taxis and like diesel-powered taxis. | |
| Keith: Some of them use electricity.. | |
| Sadia: Mm-hm. | |
| Keith: Or a different kind of gas or fuel for the taxis. | |
| Sadia: But, I think half the fun of riding in a cab in New York is talking to the driver! | |
| Keith: Yeah, they’re actually kind of, mm, well, sometimes you can talk to the driver. | |
| Sadia: Exactly. | |
| Keith: Sometimes you can’t. Some people are nice, some people are busy. | |
| Sadia: That’s true, that’s true. But I don’t know I feel like I have good luck because I’m always in a cab with some taxi driver who’s just hilarious. | |
| Keith: Yeah. | |
| Sadia: Very funny, very friendly. Yeah, I guess it’s true that they’re not all so friendly and | |
| helpful, but, uh, Zo is lucky enough to find a really nice, fun driver who talked to him and who even gave him a restaurant recommendation. | |
| Keith: Yeah some taxi drivers will do that. | |
| Sadia: Interestingly, I also read that, something like, and don’t quote me on this number, but I read like 90 over percent of New York taxi drivers | |
| are foreign-born, which is very interesting. | |
| Keith: Well I think that’s very, very true, too. Living here, I think most of the taxi drivers I’ve run across are foreign born, so they’re not native English speakers. What’s another word for a taxi? | |
| Sadia: Oh, cab. | |
| Keith: Yeah, so sometimes you can say “cab,” c-a-b, or taxi. They’re both the same thing. Alright, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. | |
| VOCAB LIST | |
| The first word we shall see is: | |
| Sadia: building [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: a roofed and walled structure made for permanent use | |
| Sadia: building [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: building [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| address [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: place at which a person or group can be communicated | |
| with | |
| address [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| address [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: America [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: the United States of America | |
| Sadia: America [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: America [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| really [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: truly, very | |
| really [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| really [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: little [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: small amount | |
| Sadia: little [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: little [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| pretty [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: quite, fairly | |
| pretty [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| pretty [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: very [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: to a high degree, truly | |
| Sadia: very [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: very [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| restaurant [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: a place where food and drinks can be bought | |
| restaurant [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| restaurant [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: near [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: close by | |
| Sadia: near [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: near [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| we [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: I and the others in a group that includes me | |
| we [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| we [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: arrive [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: to reach a destination | |
| Sadia: arrive [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: arrive [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| change [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: money returned when a payment exceeds the amount | |
| due | |
| change [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| change [natural native speed] | |
| Next:" | |
| Sadia: receipt [natural native speed] | |
| Keith: a writing acknowledging the receiving of goods or money | |
| Sadia: receipt [slowly - broken down by syllable] | |
| Sadia: receipt [natural native speed] | |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE | |
| Keith: Well, how about we take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson? | |
| Sadia: OK, well the first phrase we’ll look at is, "Where to?" | |
| Keith: Now what’s that mean? | |
| Sadia: When Zo gets into the cab, the cab driver asks, "Where to?" This phrase uses an implied verb-- or, a suggested verb. | |
| Keith: So what the driver means is, "Where are you going to?" | |
| Sadia: Exactly. This is yet another, like, business transaction, so these kinds of really short phrases, they are kind of expected. | |
| Keith: And the reason is, speed up things | |
| Sadia: Mm-hm. | |
| Keith: Make things faster. Next we’re going to go over how to tell the driver where you want to go. | |
| Sadia: After he's asked where he is going, Zo responds with, "To the Altman Building, please." | |
| Keith: This is a typical answer to any taxicab driver's question of "Where to?" | |
| Sadia: You simply answer "to..." and fill in the name or the address of your destination. | |
| Keith: For example, "To the Waldorf-Astoria." That’s a hotel in New York. Or, how about an address. You can say. "To 1515 Broadway." Next up is.. | |
| Sadia: Next is, "What's the address?" | |
| Keith: Zo tells the driver the name of the building he's going to, the Altman building, but he doesn't give the address. While | |
| some taxicab drivers know buildings by name, some-- like the one in this dialogue, they don’t know the building by the name.. | |
| Sadia: So the driver asks, "What's the address?" He | |
| wants to know the number of the building and the name (or, since we’re in New York, the number) of the street-- he wants to know the address. | |
| Keith: And the next phrase is, 'No, not really." The driver compliments Zo on his English. He says, “Oh, your English is so good, it’s so great,” but Zo, he’s a little embarrassed-- | |
| Sadia: He’s a little shy. | |
| Keith: Yeah, so he wants to be modest-- and so he says to the driver, "No, not really." My English is not that good. No, not really. | |
| Sadia: When he knows, full well, that he speaks beautiful English. | |
| Keith: Perfect English | |
| Sadia: So the next phrase then is, "Just a little." | |
| Keith: Zo tells the driver that he speaks | |
| English "just a little," which means, "not a lot." | |
| Sadia: And it seems, like we’re saying, that Zo’s being modest. As we've heard over the past 11 lessons, Zo's English IS... | |
| Keith: Very good. Yeah. | |
| Sadia: Yeah. | |
| Keith: What’s next, Sadia? | |
| Sadia: Next up is the phrase, "Wait a minute." | |
| Keith: That has the same meaning as, "Just a moment, please." | |
| Sadia: We're here! | |
| Keith: Where? | |
| Sadia: Here-- We’re here at the last phrase! This is what the cab driver says when they arrive at Zo's destination, The Altman Building. He says, "We're here!" | |
| Keith: And that simply means, "We have arrived." | |
Lesson focus |
|
|---|---|
| Sadia: The focus points of this lesson are the verb, "to speak," | |
| Keith: Also, questions with verbs. | |
| Sadia: And finally, adjectives with nouns. | |
| Keith: Let's start with the verb, "to speak." | |
| Sadia: You know that "to speak" means to say or to utter. The driver is impressed by Zo's English, so he says to him, "You speak English well!" | |
| Keith: Wait a minute-- let's take a look at the SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE of of the verb, "to speak." | |
| Sadia: Good idea. Let's start with the singular-- | |
| Keith: I speak, you speak, he speaks, she speaks. | |
| Sadia: And now, the plural is -- We speak, you speak, and they speak. | |
| Keith: All the forms of the verb "speak" seem to be the same here, except for one. | |
| Sadia: The 3rd person singular, he or she SPEAKS. There’s an S at the end. The driver says to Zo, "You SPEAK English well!" which uses the subject + verb + object formula. | |
| Keith: "You speak English well!" | |
| Sadia: The driver is using the SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE of the verb, "to speak." | |
| Keith: When do we use the simple present tense? | |
| Sadia: We use it in a few instances - first, when the verb is general, or it happens all the time. | |
| Keith: So maybe something like, "You, Sadia, SPEAK English." | |
| Sadia: Exactly! Another instance when we use the SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE is when the verb is not only happening now. "You SPEAK English everyday, all day" That’s a perfect great example of that. | |
| Keith: That definitely makes sense. Are there any other times we use the simple present tense? | |
| Sadia: It's also used if the statement is always true. | |
| Keith: If it’s always true, you say "You SPEAK English... ALL THE TIME!" | |
| Sadia: Exactly! You got it. | |
| Keith: Now that we've mastered that, let's move on to the second focus point of today's lesson, questions with verbs. | |
| Sadia: This taxi driver is full of questions! First, he asks, "Where to?" which is short for "Where are you going to?" | |
| Keith: And then he then asks Zo, "Where are you from?" | |
| Sadia: He ALSO asks, "Are you visiting?" | |
| Keith: Each one of these questions uses the present tense of the | |
| verb, "to be." And because the driver is speaking about the person he is addressing, Zo, he uses the 2nd person singular of the verb, "to be," and what that is... "are." | |
| Sadia: He says, “Where [ARE you going] to?” | |
| Keith: And, Where ARE you from? | |
| Sadia: and ARE you visiting? | |
| Keith: The formula for forming a question is question word + auxiliary verb + subject + main | |
| noun. "Are" functions as an AUXILIARY VERB-- and that means it’s a helping verb. | |
| Sadia: What about question words-- we covered those in an earlier lesson, right? | |
| Keith: That’s right. The question words are Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How. Sadia, can you make a sentence? | |
| Sadia: OK, how about, Where + are + you + going? Where are you going? | |
| Keith: Perfect. | |
| Sadia: Last point is - ADJECTIVES WITH NOUNS. We've done this before, but we should probably review. | |
| Keith: You all probably remember that adjectives are words that are used to DESCRIBE nouns. | |
| Sadia: And there are a few great examples in the dialogue of adjectives being used to describe nouns. | |
| Keith: There are! When the driver compliments Zo on his English and Zo disagrees, the driver says, "No-- you're pretty good!" | |
| Sadia: So he uses the adjective, "good" (modified by the adverb, "pretty") to describe Zo-- or actually, to describe his English skills. He says, "You're pretty good!" | |
| Keith: And the taxicab driver who talks a lot, he also tells Zo, that "there’s a very good restaurant near" And he’s talking about Zo's destination, The Altman Building. The word, "very" functions as an adverb and that just means how good the restaurant is-- it's "very good." | |
| Sadia: Let's think of some more adjective and noun pairings. | |
| Keith: How about. Great day. | |
| Sadia: How about, romantic vacation. | |
| Keith: Ooh, that’s nice. How about, wild party! | |
| Sadia: Or, like, thrilling adventure, maybe. | |
Outro |
|
| Keith: Let's wrap this up! Thanks for listening, everyone. | |
| Sadia: Thanks a lot. We’ll see you next time. | |
| Keith and Sadia: Bye-bye. |
26 Comments
HideHave you ever gotten good tips or information from a local while travelling?
Hi Aung,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us your kind words. 😇
If you ever have any questions, please let us know.
Best,
Levente
Team EnglishClass101.com
Thanks for your conversation lesson with a taxicab driver. We also get knowledge about the New York taxis and drivers.
Hello mojgan and Ali,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us your comments. 😇
Keep up the good work! 👍
If you ever have any questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Levente
Team EnglishClass101.com
I LIKE IT )
I LOVE IT ❤️️👍
Hello Akram and Ventsislav!
WOW!! THANKS!!
Thanks for taking the time to comment!!
Feel free to shoot through any questions you have throughout your studies.
Cheers,
Éva
Team EnglishClass101.com
Receipt please.
- Sure. Here you are.
My English is pretty good. 😎
I LOVE YOU ❤️️
Hello Wilson!!
Thanks for taking the time to comment!!! Wonderful effort here!
It's always great to hear from our students.
Feel free to shoot through any questions you have throughout your studies.
Cheers,
Éva
Team EnglishClass101.com
Good afternoon. Where to?
Good afternoon. To the cristal hotel please?
What's the adress?
Here it is.
Where are you from?
Oh, I'm from San Marco in Guatemala.
Oh yea! . Are you visiting?
Yep.
You speak English well.
No, no really. Just a little.
No your-pretty good.
(Laughs) No, not yet. Where are you from? Your English is pretty good, too.
(Chuckles) Yeah, well. I've been here for ten year now.
So, you know. The Cristal hotel? There's a very good restaurant near here.
what's the name?
Azofrasia
Can you write in down?
Sure. Hold on a minute.
We're here. That'll be $ 8.50.
Here you are. Thank you.
Thank you! Here's your change.
Receipt, please.
Sure. Here you are.
Best regards.